In entries below I detail my efforts to edit information given on Wikipedia about pecusa membership figures. This is an updated entry forWikipedia based on information just released by the Episcopal Church Center. ed.
== Membership==
Total membership of active baptized members is 2,332,506, as counted by the Episcopal Church from all submitted parochial reports for 2006.
In recent years many mainline denominations have experienced a decline in membership. Mainline Protestant churches no longer dominate] Once changes in how membership is counted are taken into consideration, the Episcopal Church's membership numbers were broadly flat throughout the 1990s and into the first couple of years of the 21st century. However, figures show a "precipitous" fall of over 167,000 members for the years 2003–6, largely as the result of conflict of the various controversies engulfing the Church.
On the talk page related to this article, the following was posted:
"On the three-year loss of 115,000 members, James B. Lemler, Episcopal director of mission, said in an interview that the totals "are not more than we expected." Lemler also said that officials were heartened that average Sunday attendance in 2005 did not decline as it did in the previous two years. The average Sunday worship attendance in 2005 was 787,000 people, down only 8,500."
My response:
I revised the membership section based on the latest information (2006 numbers). Is the quote above from Lemler meant to suggest that losing 115,000 members is okay because they weren't more than expected? Add another 50,000 plus to that number for 2006. Is losing 167,000 okay if it's what is expected? By the way, some losses from 2006, including large parishes, won't figure in until 2007. But as long as the losses aren't any greater than expected, all is well.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
With Revenue Down, $1.8 Million Deficit Looms for Council
From The Living Church:
10/29/2007
Some $1.8 million will need to be trimmed from the 2008 budget when the national Executive Council meets in Quito, Ecuador, next February.
The deficit, which includes up to $550,000 in additional expenses for staff reorganization, was discussed during meetings of Executive Council’s Administration and Finance Committee. Council met Oct. 26-28 in Dearborn, Mich.
The majority of the deficit is due to an updated forecast of revenue about 2 percent less than the $50.4 million approved in the budget by the 75th General Convention in 2006. The remainder is due to additional estimated expenses of $444,000 attributed to the Church Center staff reorganization.
Treasurer Kurt Barnes said some of the lower-than-expected revenue would be offset by applying money available from lower-than-budgeted expenses this year. He expects similar savings on expenses in 2008, but that amount is set by General Convention until expenses are realized.
Expenses tied to the reorganization would be ongoing to fund the regional satellite offices and staff salary increases commensurate with greater managerial responsibilities at the regional centers. During the Administration and Finance Committee meetings, Mr. Barnes and Linda Watt, chief operating officer, said the reorganization would update Church Center management structures previously unchanged for decades and ultimately result in significant savings.
In response to a question by a reporter, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said New York City’s relatively high cost of living could be turned to The Episcopal Church’s advantage by reassigning staff to areas of the country where the cost of living is lower, and perhaps leasing more floor space at its Manhattan headquarters, prime real estate near the United Nations.
Bishop J. Jon Bruno of Los Angeles supported the regional satellite office concept. This will enable headquarters to extend its reach beyond Wall Street, he said during debate in the closing plenary on Sunday.
Steve Waring
10/29/2007
Some $1.8 million will need to be trimmed from the 2008 budget when the national Executive Council meets in Quito, Ecuador, next February.
The deficit, which includes up to $550,000 in additional expenses for staff reorganization, was discussed during meetings of Executive Council’s Administration and Finance Committee. Council met Oct. 26-28 in Dearborn, Mich.
The majority of the deficit is due to an updated forecast of revenue about 2 percent less than the $50.4 million approved in the budget by the 75th General Convention in 2006. The remainder is due to additional estimated expenses of $444,000 attributed to the Church Center staff reorganization.
Treasurer Kurt Barnes said some of the lower-than-expected revenue would be offset by applying money available from lower-than-budgeted expenses this year. He expects similar savings on expenses in 2008, but that amount is set by General Convention until expenses are realized.
Expenses tied to the reorganization would be ongoing to fund the regional satellite offices and staff salary increases commensurate with greater managerial responsibilities at the regional centers. During the Administration and Finance Committee meetings, Mr. Barnes and Linda Watt, chief operating officer, said the reorganization would update Church Center management structures previously unchanged for decades and ultimately result in significant savings.
In response to a question by a reporter, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said New York City’s relatively high cost of living could be turned to The Episcopal Church’s advantage by reassigning staff to areas of the country where the cost of living is lower, and perhaps leasing more floor space at its Manhattan headquarters, prime real estate near the United Nations.
Bishop J. Jon Bruno of Los Angeles supported the regional satellite office concept. This will enable headquarters to extend its reach beyond Wall Street, he said during debate in the closing plenary on Sunday.
Steve Waring
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Letter to Letter to Delegates of the Diocese of Pittsburgh Convention
My brothers and sisters in Christ in the Diocese of Pittsburgh
Someone asked me recently if I was planning to vote at the Convention on November 2. “Not until they allow email ballots,” was my answer. But it occurred to me that I could send an electronic voice vote instead of a paper ballot.
I write to you from a distance but with a closeness of heart as you prepare for the Convention this weekend. I have been an Episcopalian since my conversion and baptism as a university student in 1966. I have been ordained since 1971 and a priest of the Diocese since 1979. I have been a theologian and educator at Trinity School for Ministry for 21 years and now in Uganda since 2000. I have been addressing the crisis in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion for the past 20 years.
I believe Bishop Jack Iker has spoken frankly and prophetically when he states there is no future in The Episcopal Church for those who hold to biblical Christianity in the Anglican tradition. In my courses on the prophets, I always taught that oracles of judgement precede oracles of hope. Such is the situation of Anglicanism today. We have incurred God’s judgement as a tradition and as a church. The responses of biblically-minded Anglicans to this crisis have been various, uncoordinated and often contradictory, which may itself be an outworking of judgement.
About ten years ago, I did some contingency planning for the American Anglican Council by projecting five scenarios for the future. Let me comment on them briefly with benefit of ten years of hindsight.
Scenario 1: Victory in turning the institution back to the biblical and historic faith. Despite strenuous efforts by the AAC and others, the Episcopal Church has set its course for the future, and we are not a part of it. Politically, we lost. There is no credible scenario now by which TEC can be reformed or revived from within.
Scenario 2: A negotiated settlement that would allow our group (call them confessors or dissidents) to live in peace or to separate with a fair distribution of property. The powers that be have ruled out this option, either out of fear that they might open the floodgates to departures or out of conviction that they don’t need to compromise, holding the legal cards in their hand.
Scenario 3: A league of confessing parishes. Parishes have been the main source of strength among confessing Episcopalians. Beginning with the First Promise movement, then with AMiA, and now with other networks aligned with overseas provinces, parishes have become the foundation of a new church. In most cases, joining these networks has cost churches and clergy their property, pensions, and some of their people. At the same time, breaking free has brought new energy for evangelism, church planting and mission.
Scenario 4: A league of confessing dioceses. The Anglican Communion Network emerged out of the AAC to unite bishops and like-minded dioceses against the powers that be. Unfortunately, this league has been whittled down to only a few. Help has come from another quarter: a network of bishops and dioceses has emerged, with connections reaching internationally into the Global South and historically back to the Reformed Episcopal Church and other groups who have been marginalized by the Episcopal Establishment over the years. This is the Common Cause Partnership.
Scenario 5: Piecemeal disintegration. Institutional death – comfortably financed but death nonetheless – is the future of The Episcopal Church. If the typical Anglican worldwide is a 30 year-old person of color, so the typical Episcopalian of the future will be a 70-year-old divorced priest. Those who stay in the institution to make a witness will be swallowed up and swept away like the exiles of Samaria after 722 BC.
None of the above scenarios is pleasant, humanly speaking; even the first (victory) would have been distressing in its way. As Scripture says: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant…. But some scenarios – call them ways of obedience – are hopeful; as the writer continues: “later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).
I think realignment through the Common Cause Partnership offers the best amalgamation of parish and diocesan scenarios that we can ask for at present. Yes, there is danger of splintering. Yes, there are thorny issues like women’s ordination to be faced. And certainly, there is no way we shall return to “business as usual.” On the other hand, I think this movement has garnered the best leadership in the church, and above all, it has the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ that those who are faithful over a little will be entrusted with more (Matthew 25:21).
Some of my friends and former students have concluded that Anglicanism has lost its saltiness and have departed to other churches. I believe Establishment Anglicanism is dying, both nationally and internationally, but the Anglican tradition, chastened and reformed, has an ongoing witness to make. Certainly, the Anglicans in the Church of Uganda see it that way. So I plan to continue an Anglican come what may.
I serve in Uganda, but I am proud to be a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. I am in awe of my bishop, who has exhibited sacrificial courage, biblical faithfulness, and practical wisdom in leading the Network and Common Cause movements. I cannot in good conscience remain a priest of The Episcopal Church much longer, but it is my hope that I may remain a priest of this diocese for years to come. Your decisions this week may enable that possibility.
May God bless and guide you in your deliberations. We shall be praying with you as you meet.
Cordially in Christ,
Stephen
The Rev. Prof. Stephen Noll
Mukono, Uganda
28 October 2007
Someone asked me recently if I was planning to vote at the Convention on November 2. “Not until they allow email ballots,” was my answer. But it occurred to me that I could send an electronic voice vote instead of a paper ballot.
I write to you from a distance but with a closeness of heart as you prepare for the Convention this weekend. I have been an Episcopalian since my conversion and baptism as a university student in 1966. I have been ordained since 1971 and a priest of the Diocese since 1979. I have been a theologian and educator at Trinity School for Ministry for 21 years and now in Uganda since 2000. I have been addressing the crisis in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion for the past 20 years.
I believe Bishop Jack Iker has spoken frankly and prophetically when he states there is no future in The Episcopal Church for those who hold to biblical Christianity in the Anglican tradition. In my courses on the prophets, I always taught that oracles of judgement precede oracles of hope. Such is the situation of Anglicanism today. We have incurred God’s judgement as a tradition and as a church. The responses of biblically-minded Anglicans to this crisis have been various, uncoordinated and often contradictory, which may itself be an outworking of judgement.
About ten years ago, I did some contingency planning for the American Anglican Council by projecting five scenarios for the future. Let me comment on them briefly with benefit of ten years of hindsight.
Scenario 1: Victory in turning the institution back to the biblical and historic faith. Despite strenuous efforts by the AAC and others, the Episcopal Church has set its course for the future, and we are not a part of it. Politically, we lost. There is no credible scenario now by which TEC can be reformed or revived from within.
Scenario 2: A negotiated settlement that would allow our group (call them confessors or dissidents) to live in peace or to separate with a fair distribution of property. The powers that be have ruled out this option, either out of fear that they might open the floodgates to departures or out of conviction that they don’t need to compromise, holding the legal cards in their hand.
Scenario 3: A league of confessing parishes. Parishes have been the main source of strength among confessing Episcopalians. Beginning with the First Promise movement, then with AMiA, and now with other networks aligned with overseas provinces, parishes have become the foundation of a new church. In most cases, joining these networks has cost churches and clergy their property, pensions, and some of their people. At the same time, breaking free has brought new energy for evangelism, church planting and mission.
Scenario 4: A league of confessing dioceses. The Anglican Communion Network emerged out of the AAC to unite bishops and like-minded dioceses against the powers that be. Unfortunately, this league has been whittled down to only a few. Help has come from another quarter: a network of bishops and dioceses has emerged, with connections reaching internationally into the Global South and historically back to the Reformed Episcopal Church and other groups who have been marginalized by the Episcopal Establishment over the years. This is the Common Cause Partnership.
Scenario 5: Piecemeal disintegration. Institutional death – comfortably financed but death nonetheless – is the future of The Episcopal Church. If the typical Anglican worldwide is a 30 year-old person of color, so the typical Episcopalian of the future will be a 70-year-old divorced priest. Those who stay in the institution to make a witness will be swallowed up and swept away like the exiles of Samaria after 722 BC.
None of the above scenarios is pleasant, humanly speaking; even the first (victory) would have been distressing in its way. As Scripture says: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant…. But some scenarios – call them ways of obedience – are hopeful; as the writer continues: “later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).
I think realignment through the Common Cause Partnership offers the best amalgamation of parish and diocesan scenarios that we can ask for at present. Yes, there is danger of splintering. Yes, there are thorny issues like women’s ordination to be faced. And certainly, there is no way we shall return to “business as usual.” On the other hand, I think this movement has garnered the best leadership in the church, and above all, it has the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ that those who are faithful over a little will be entrusted with more (Matthew 25:21).
Some of my friends and former students have concluded that Anglicanism has lost its saltiness and have departed to other churches. I believe Establishment Anglicanism is dying, both nationally and internationally, but the Anglican tradition, chastened and reformed, has an ongoing witness to make. Certainly, the Anglicans in the Church of Uganda see it that way. So I plan to continue an Anglican come what may.
I serve in Uganda, but I am proud to be a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. I am in awe of my bishop, who has exhibited sacrificial courage, biblical faithfulness, and practical wisdom in leading the Network and Common Cause movements. I cannot in good conscience remain a priest of The Episcopal Church much longer, but it is my hope that I may remain a priest of this diocese for years to come. Your decisions this week may enable that possibility.
May God bless and guide you in your deliberations. We shall be praying with you as you meet.
Cordially in Christ,
Stephen
The Rev. Prof. Stephen Noll
Mukono, Uganda
28 October 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
CANA Ordains 10 New Clergy Members
FAIRFAX , Va. (October 22, 2007) - The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) ordained nine candidates to the Sacred Order of Deacons and a deacon to the Sacred Priesthood on Saturday. Six of the candidates who were ordained to the diaconate are in transition to the priesthood. The new clergy members, representing four Virginia parishes and a parish in Georgia, were ordained by the Rt. Rev'd Martyn Minns, Missionary Bishop of CANA at The Falls Church in Falls Church, Va.
"This ordination ceremony underscores the continued growth of CANA as our parish leaders become new clergy members. We are blessed to have clergy who are committed to moving forward in mission and ministry while preserving the scriptural foundation of the Anglican tradition," said CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns. "These ordinands are a blessing to CANA and to each of their member parishes."
On Saturday evening, Deacon Dean Miller of The Falls Church was ordained to the Sacred Priesthood. In addition, the ordinations of candidates for the Transitional Diaconate who have been called to ministry and are in transition to the Sacred Priesthood included: Bob Fickley, Larry Shrum, James Guthrie and Andrew Rowell of The Falls Church, along with Will Wilson of Christ Our Savior, and Harry Zeiders of Truro Church.
Bob Ragan of The Falls Church and David Welch of Church of the Epiphany were ordained as Vocational Deacons and have been called to serve through ministry while fulfilling a vocation. Along with the Virginia parish leaders, Doug Mussey of Christ Church in Atlanta , Ga. , was ordained to the Vocational Diaconate.
"We are pleased to welcome these ordinands into the diaconate and the priesthood. These leaders are an important part of the growing movement to uphold orthodox Anglicanism in North America . We are grateful for the commitment these new clergy members have made to honor the authority of Scripture and preserve the historic teachings of the church," said CANA Suffragan Bishop David Bena.
The Convocation of Anglicans in North America www.canaconvocation.org currently consists of approximately 60 congregations and 80 clergy in 20 states. About a quarter of the congregations are primarily expatriate Nigerians. CANA is part of the Common Cause partnership that includes representatives of more than 250 Anglican congregations that are connected to the rest of the Anglican Communion, a worldwide fellowship of some 70 million, through various pastoral and missionary initiatives.
END
Note: St. Andrew's Anglican Church in Vestal (standrewsvestal.org) is the CANA parish in Central NY.
"This ordination ceremony underscores the continued growth of CANA as our parish leaders become new clergy members. We are blessed to have clergy who are committed to moving forward in mission and ministry while preserving the scriptural foundation of the Anglican tradition," said CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns. "These ordinands are a blessing to CANA and to each of their member parishes."
On Saturday evening, Deacon Dean Miller of The Falls Church was ordained to the Sacred Priesthood. In addition, the ordinations of candidates for the Transitional Diaconate who have been called to ministry and are in transition to the Sacred Priesthood included: Bob Fickley, Larry Shrum, James Guthrie and Andrew Rowell of The Falls Church, along with Will Wilson of Christ Our Savior, and Harry Zeiders of Truro Church.
Bob Ragan of The Falls Church and David Welch of Church of the Epiphany were ordained as Vocational Deacons and have been called to serve through ministry while fulfilling a vocation. Along with the Virginia parish leaders, Doug Mussey of Christ Church in Atlanta , Ga. , was ordained to the Vocational Diaconate.
"We are pleased to welcome these ordinands into the diaconate and the priesthood. These leaders are an important part of the growing movement to uphold orthodox Anglicanism in North America . We are grateful for the commitment these new clergy members have made to honor the authority of Scripture and preserve the historic teachings of the church," said CANA Suffragan Bishop David Bena.
The Convocation of Anglicans in North America www.canaconvocation.org currently consists of approximately 60 congregations and 80 clergy in 20 states. About a quarter of the congregations are primarily expatriate Nigerians. CANA is part of the Common Cause partnership that includes representatives of more than 250 Anglican congregations that are connected to the rest of the Anglican Communion, a worldwide fellowship of some 70 million, through various pastoral and missionary initiatives.
END
Note: St. Andrew's Anglican Church in Vestal (standrewsvestal.org) is the CANA parish in Central NY.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Interesting Facts To Keep Life in Perspective
*If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100
people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look
something like the following.*
*There would be: *
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
6 would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the
USA
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death
1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
and *only 1 would own a computer*
When one considers our world from such a small compressed perspective, the
need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.
The following is also something to ponder...
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more
blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of
imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are
ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment,
arrest,torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in
the world.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead
and a place to sleep...you are *richer than 75% of this world.*
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish
someplace ... you are among the *top 8% of the world's wealthy.*
If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare,
even in the US and Canada.
If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that
someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are *more blessed than
over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.*
Someone once said:
What goes around comes around. Work like you don't need the money. Love like
you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching. Sing like nobody's
listening. Live like it's Heaven on Earth.
My Wikipedia Experience
This afternoon I was doing some sermon research at Wikipedia (I know, not always a reliable source) and I came upon the article on pecusa. This is from an Article on The Episcopal Church. This is from the original section under the title Membership:
Total membership of active baptized members of exactly 2,369,476 as of 2007 is counted by the Episcopal Church from all submitted parochial reports for 2005 - the latest year available.[57]
In recent years many mainline denominations have experienced a decline in membership.[58] Once changes in how membership is counted are taken into consideration, the Episcopal Church's membership has been flat.[59][60][61][62][63]
There are a number of problems with this entry. First, in an article cited in this section in footnote 61, the membership number given is not "exactly 2,369,476." The figure in The Christian Century is 2,205,376. Second, that figure is from 2005, not 2007. Third, the suggestion that changes in membership counting account for essentially no change in membership numbers (i.e. flat) is clearly erroneous. I edited this information several times, with my edits being removed within minutes. When I checked this out I was informed that there was an "edit conflict." When I further checked into this, I found that I was blocked from continuing to edit, with this message linked:
Block warning: You can read pages, but you are blocked from editing and changing them.
You have been blocked from editing, or tried to edit a page to which you do not have editing access. [my ip address] (your account, your IP address or a range of addresses) was blocked by Angr for the following reason (see our blocking policy):
continuing to remove sourced info and add unsourced info
As a Wikipedia contributor, I used my edit privileges to continue to change the entry based on the information given in The Christian Century article. Over and over again my use of the TCC term "precipitous" and my edit was removed within minutes. The reason given for my edits being removed was because I hadn't sourced my material. So, I learned how to do footnotes and I sourced my material. My edits were still removed.
This is the sentence I inserted after removing the sentence about a flat membership:
Membership declines for the Episcopal Church have been described as "precipitous" in one major ecumenical publication.
"Precipitous is from a quote attributed to Kirk Hadaway, the director of research for pecusa. After going back and forth with my edit being removed and my reinsertion of it, another paragraph was added. The full entry as amended:
Total membership of active baptized members of exactly 2,369,476 as of 2007 is counted by the Episcopal Church from all submitted parochial reports for 2005 - the latest year available.[57]
In recent years many mainline denominations have experienced a decline in membership.[58] Once changes in how membership is counted are taken into consideration, the Episcopal Church's membership has been flat.[59][60][61][62][63]
“ It is easy to look at the unadjusted membership trends for the Episcopal Church and say the sky is falling. But to do so would be irresponsible and inaccurate. A more sober look at the statistics (membership and attendance) reveals that we have reached a plateau of sorts—from which we can slide into a new decline or begin growing again.[64]
After more back and forth edits, I was directed to a Wikipedia talk page. There I discovered that I'm not the first one who has attempted to edit the membership information. Here's the first entry on the talk page under membership:
Wassupwestcoast, why are you reverting my changes regarding membership? The current statement that membership is flat for the last few decades, with no ASA discussion (far better indicator) and people removing discussion of age trends is highly biased. Even pro-TEC folks don't believe this distorted view. There can be no doubt that we have shrunk. The only question is how much and what is the most accurate measure. --User:ReasonandRevelation 21:56, 12 September 2007
There is a counter-argument that you can read on Wikipedia. Here is the reply:
I understand your points, but even the most ardent pro-TEC supporters like Louie Crew acknowledge that TEC has hemorrhaged members over the last 40 years and TEC itself admits drops since 2003, as my links (and the links previously posted) pointed out. While there may be an argument that there is more to the story, the current discussion of membership is completely biased in favor of TEC (and I am an Episcopalian, but I am pretty tired of the spin).
Shoot, this year alone the Virginia secessions are larger than several dozen whole dioceses. I’d like to see some support for the proposition that it has been flat since 2003. And it’s not a post hoc fallacy to suppose that it was partly based on Gene Robinson. His consecration is the single most disruptive thing to happen to our church in my lifetime. I have never been in a Wikipedia edit war, and I admit that I am not that committed, but it is a shame that ideology trumps objectivity. The edits I made were incredibly cautious and arguably don't even begin to tell the story of the exodus that has happened in the last 3.5 years.
I don't know where you are getting your stats from, but just look at TEC's own self-reported stats: 846,000 in 2002 (the year before Robinson), and 787,000 ASA in 2005. Conspicuously absent from TEC is official reporting from 2006, even though we're almost done with 2007, and, as noted above, 2007 has witnessed a hemorrhage of whole churches leaving. Furthermore, this is on the back of major declines in attendance in the last 40 years.
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Average_Sunday_Attendance_1995-05_by_Domestic_Diocese.pdf
It's not accurate to chalk these major numbers changes to methodology. Also relevant to my church's story is the alarming increase in the average age, now somewhere around 57.
Respectfully,--ReasonandRevelation.
I have been accused of violating the 3 revert rule, with no mention of the fact that two others who have restored the original erroneous information have violated the same rule. Here's my last post to the talk page:
Your selective use of the 3 revert rule is interesting. My first edit was removed because I didn't cite sources. When I cited sources that were already being used, my edit was still removed. What you call dated is more recent information than what was cited previously for the 2.3 million number and my figure is from the director of research for pecusa (btw, I use pecusa because it is the official name and it identifies the sectarian nature of recent innovations. You may not remember the lawsuit that 815 filed or threatened to file against Bp. Wantland in order to retain this name). The fact that you are clinging to outdated numbers speaks volumes. This will all be settled when pecusa releases the 2006 figures. This argument is not about accuracy, because if it was you would acknowledge the most recent figures. It is about maintaining a position not founded in fact - that position is that pecusa is not losing thousands of members a year. pecusa is losing thousands of members a year and your attempts to cover this up will ultimately fail.
Obviously the last quote in the Wikipedia article section on membership from The Christian Century story is intended to buttress the claims of the second paragraph, but the problem with this is that Hadaway is talking about the numbers pre-2003. Again, he is the one who describes the 2003-2005 numbers as a precipitous drop. So I edited the second paragraph once again, with more information from the same article, as well as restoring the correct 2005 membership total in the first paragraph. Read it here (with sources), because no doubt it is already gone from the Wikipedia article:
Membership declines for the Episcopal Church have been described as "precipitous" in one major ecumenical publication. Factors such as a low birth rate and an aging church population as well as fleeing conservatives have contributed to the membership decline. Losses in the Episcopal Church have accelerated in recent years with a decline of 115,000 from 2003-2005.
Here's my last attempt (with sources):
Total membership of active baptized members of 2,205,376 according to Kirk Hadaway, the Director of Research of the Episcopal Church. [http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2566 The Christian Century "Episcopal membership loss 'precipitous'" Nov 2006]
In recent years many mainline denominations have experienced a decline in membership.[http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_60792_ENG_HTM.htm Mainline Protestant churches no longer dominate] Membership declines for the Episcopal Church have been described as "precipitous" in one major ecumenical publication. Factors such as a low birth rate and an aging church population as well as fleeing conservatives have contributed to the membership decline. Losses in the Episcopal Church have accelerated in recent years with a decline of 115,000 from 2003-2005.[http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2566 The Christian Century "Episcopal membership loss 'precipitous'" Nov 2006]
name=fastfacts2005>[http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Domestic_FAST_FACTS_2005.pdf Episcopal Fast Facts: 2005][http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Text_Summary_of_Episcopal_Statistics_2005.pdf Overview of Membership, Attendance and Giving Trends in the Episcopal Church][http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2566 The Christian Century "Episcopal membership loss 'precipitous'" Nov 2006][http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/2005_Red_Book_Table_of_Statistics_by_Prov_Diocese.pdf Table of Statistics of the Episcopal Church From 2005 Parochial Reports. Source: The General Convention Office as of January 2007]
Speaking about membership trends before 2003, Hadaway says, {{cquote| It is easy to look at the unadjusted membership trends for the Episcopal Church and say the sky is falling. But to do so would be irresponsible and inaccurate. A more sober look at the statistics (membership and attendance) reveals that we have reached a plateau of sorts—from which we can slide into a new decline or begin growing again.[http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/2004GrowthReport(1).pdf Is the Episcopal Church Growing (or Declining)? by by C. Kirk Hadaway Director of Research, The Episcopal Church Center]}}Since 2003, the membership losses of 115,000 demonstrate that a slide into new decline has begun.[http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2566 The Christian Century "Episcopal membership loss 'precipitous'" Nov 2006]
There is so much proof of the dishonesty of pecusa that you don't need another example. Still, you would think that they'd be embarrassed by the public display of their dishonesty.
Total membership of active baptized members of exactly 2,369,476 as of 2007 is counted by the Episcopal Church from all submitted parochial reports for 2005 - the latest year available.[57]
In recent years many mainline denominations have experienced a decline in membership.[58] Once changes in how membership is counted are taken into consideration, the Episcopal Church's membership has been flat.[59][60][61][62][63]
There are a number of problems with this entry. First, in an article cited in this section in footnote 61, the membership number given is not "exactly 2,369,476." The figure in The Christian Century is 2,205,376. Second, that figure is from 2005, not 2007. Third, the suggestion that changes in membership counting account for essentially no change in membership numbers (i.e. flat) is clearly erroneous. I edited this information several times, with my edits being removed within minutes. When I checked this out I was informed that there was an "edit conflict." When I further checked into this, I found that I was blocked from continuing to edit, with this message linked:
Block warning: You can read pages, but you are blocked from editing and changing them.
You have been blocked from editing, or tried to edit a page to which you do not have editing access. [my ip address] (your account, your IP address or a range of addresses) was blocked by Angr for the following reason (see our blocking policy):
continuing to remove sourced info and add unsourced info
As a Wikipedia contributor, I used my edit privileges to continue to change the entry based on the information given in The Christian Century article. Over and over again my use of the TCC term "precipitous" and my edit was removed within minutes. The reason given for my edits being removed was because I hadn't sourced my material. So, I learned how to do footnotes and I sourced my material. My edits were still removed.
This is the sentence I inserted after removing the sentence about a flat membership:
Membership declines for the Episcopal Church have been described as "precipitous" in one major ecumenical publication.
"Precipitous is from a quote attributed to Kirk Hadaway, the director of research for pecusa. After going back and forth with my edit being removed and my reinsertion of it, another paragraph was added. The full entry as amended:
Total membership of active baptized members of exactly 2,369,476 as of 2007 is counted by the Episcopal Church from all submitted parochial reports for 2005 - the latest year available.[57]
In recent years many mainline denominations have experienced a decline in membership.[58] Once changes in how membership is counted are taken into consideration, the Episcopal Church's membership has been flat.[59][60][61][62][63]
“ It is easy to look at the unadjusted membership trends for the Episcopal Church and say the sky is falling. But to do so would be irresponsible and inaccurate. A more sober look at the statistics (membership and attendance) reveals that we have reached a plateau of sorts—from which we can slide into a new decline or begin growing again.[64]
After more back and forth edits, I was directed to a Wikipedia talk page. There I discovered that I'm not the first one who has attempted to edit the membership information. Here's the first entry on the talk page under membership:
Wassupwestcoast, why are you reverting my changes regarding membership? The current statement that membership is flat for the last few decades, with no ASA discussion (far better indicator) and people removing discussion of age trends is highly biased. Even pro-TEC folks don't believe this distorted view. There can be no doubt that we have shrunk. The only question is how much and what is the most accurate measure. --User:ReasonandRevelation 21:56, 12 September 2007
There is a counter-argument that you can read on Wikipedia. Here is the reply:
I understand your points, but even the most ardent pro-TEC supporters like Louie Crew acknowledge that TEC has hemorrhaged members over the last 40 years and TEC itself admits drops since 2003, as my links (and the links previously posted) pointed out. While there may be an argument that there is more to the story, the current discussion of membership is completely biased in favor of TEC (and I am an Episcopalian, but I am pretty tired of the spin).
Shoot, this year alone the Virginia secessions are larger than several dozen whole dioceses. I’d like to see some support for the proposition that it has been flat since 2003. And it’s not a post hoc fallacy to suppose that it was partly based on Gene Robinson. His consecration is the single most disruptive thing to happen to our church in my lifetime. I have never been in a Wikipedia edit war, and I admit that I am not that committed, but it is a shame that ideology trumps objectivity. The edits I made were incredibly cautious and arguably don't even begin to tell the story of the exodus that has happened in the last 3.5 years.
I don't know where you are getting your stats from, but just look at TEC's own self-reported stats: 846,000 in 2002 (the year before Robinson), and 787,000 ASA in 2005. Conspicuously absent from TEC is official reporting from 2006, even though we're almost done with 2007, and, as noted above, 2007 has witnessed a hemorrhage of whole churches leaving. Furthermore, this is on the back of major declines in attendance in the last 40 years.
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Average_Sunday_Attendance_1995-05_by_Domestic_Diocese.pdf
It's not accurate to chalk these major numbers changes to methodology. Also relevant to my church's story is the alarming increase in the average age, now somewhere around 57.
Respectfully,--ReasonandRevelation.
I have been accused of violating the 3 revert rule, with no mention of the fact that two others who have restored the original erroneous information have violated the same rule. Here's my last post to the talk page:
Your selective use of the 3 revert rule is interesting. My first edit was removed because I didn't cite sources. When I cited sources that were already being used, my edit was still removed. What you call dated is more recent information than what was cited previously for the 2.3 million number and my figure is from the director of research for pecusa (btw, I use pecusa because it is the official name and it identifies the sectarian nature of recent innovations. You may not remember the lawsuit that 815 filed or threatened to file against Bp. Wantland in order to retain this name). The fact that you are clinging to outdated numbers speaks volumes. This will all be settled when pecusa releases the 2006 figures. This argument is not about accuracy, because if it was you would acknowledge the most recent figures. It is about maintaining a position not founded in fact - that position is that pecusa is not losing thousands of members a year. pecusa is losing thousands of members a year and your attempts to cover this up will ultimately fail.
Obviously the last quote in the Wikipedia article section on membership from The Christian Century story is intended to buttress the claims of the second paragraph, but the problem with this is that Hadaway is talking about the numbers pre-2003. Again, he is the one who describes the 2003-2005 numbers as a precipitous drop. So I edited the second paragraph once again, with more information from the same article, as well as restoring the correct 2005 membership total in the first paragraph. Read it here (with sources), because no doubt it is already gone from the Wikipedia article:
Membership declines for the Episcopal Church have been described as "precipitous" in one major ecumenical publication. Factors such as a low birth rate and an aging church population as well as fleeing conservatives have contributed to the membership decline. Losses in the Episcopal Church have accelerated in recent years with a decline of 115,000 from 2003-2005.
Here's my last attempt (with sources):
Total membership of active baptized members of 2,205,376 according to Kirk Hadaway, the Director of Research of the Episcopal Church. [http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2566 The Christian Century "Episcopal membership loss 'precipitous'" Nov 2006]
In recent years many mainline denominations have experienced a decline in membership.[http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_60792_ENG_HTM.htm Mainline Protestant churches no longer dominate] Membership declines for the Episcopal Church have been described as "precipitous" in one major ecumenical publication. Factors such as a low birth rate and an aging church population as well as fleeing conservatives have contributed to the membership decline. Losses in the Episcopal Church have accelerated in recent years with a decline of 115,000 from 2003-2005.[http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2566 The Christian Century "Episcopal membership loss 'precipitous'" Nov 2006]
name=fastfacts2005>[http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Domestic_FAST_FACTS_2005.pdf Episcopal Fast Facts: 2005][http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Text_Summary_of_Episcopal_Statistics_2005.pdf Overview of Membership, Attendance and Giving Trends in the Episcopal Church][http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2566 The Christian Century "Episcopal membership loss 'precipitous'" Nov 2006][http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/2005_Red_Book_Table_of_Statistics_by_Prov_Diocese.pdf Table of Statistics of the Episcopal Church From 2005 Parochial Reports. Source: The General Convention Office as of January 2007]
Speaking about membership trends before 2003, Hadaway says, {{cquote| It is easy to look at the unadjusted membership trends for the Episcopal Church and say the sky is falling. But to do so would be irresponsible and inaccurate. A more sober look at the statistics (membership and attendance) reveals that we have reached a plateau of sorts—from which we can slide into a new decline or begin growing again.[http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/2004GrowthReport(1).pdf Is the Episcopal Church Growing (or Declining)? by by C. Kirk Hadaway Director of Research, The Episcopal Church Center]}}Since 2003, the membership losses of 115,000 demonstrate that a slide into new decline has begun.[http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2566 The Christian Century "Episcopal membership loss 'precipitous'" Nov 2006]
There is so much proof of the dishonesty of pecusa that you don't need another example. Still, you would think that they'd be embarrassed by the public display of their dishonesty.
Liberal dishonesty in pecusa reaches Wikipedia
The dishonesty in pecusa has reached new lows that now affect the information given about pecusa on Wikipedia. In a section of an article on the Episcopal Church a concerted effort has challenged the efforts of others to correct the erroneous numbers given. Kirk Hadaway, the director of research for pecusa has called the drop of 115,00 in membership between 2003-2005 "precipitous." The shills for pecusa on Wikipedia will not allow this to be published. Furthermore, when the erroneous figure of 2.3 million is corrected to the 2.2 million that Hadaway cites, the erroneous figure is restored. The entry below on the talk page fills in some of the details, as does the entry that precedes this one on my efforts to give factual information to the Wikipedia entry.
Some Talk and Backtalk at Wikipedia
This entry is from the talk page on the Episcopal Church at Wikipedia. There is a concerted effort to deny the deep losses that pecusa has suffered since 2003. The director of research has called the losses from 2003-2005 "precipitous." Here's the talk on this subject:
Membership
Wassupwestcoast, why are you reverting my changes regarding membership? The current statement that membership is flat for the last few decades, with no ASA discussion (far better indicator) and people removing discussion of age trends is highly biased. Even pro-TEC folks don't believe this distorted view. There can be no doubt that we have shrunk. The only question is how much and what is the most accurate measure. --User:ReasonandRevelation 21:56, 12 September 2007
I'm the one who reverted, mostly on the basis of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy you made in connecting the drop in membership since 2003 with the election of Gene Robinson. Someone could probably show a drop in membership since 2001 too; should we connect that drop in membership with 9/11? Or the drop in membership since 2000 with the presidency of George W. Bush? —Angr 22:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
User:ReasonandRevelation, the reference you provided is already referenced in the text (Ref.57) and it is quoting old data. Please look at Ref 55 to 59. There was a dip in 2003 that was recovered by 2005. This might be a statistical fluke or represent a recovery. "The Christian Century" article of Nov 2006 - see [1]- gives a count for active membership of 2,205,376. This is stated as being a "net loss of nearly 115,000 members over the past three years. To quote the article:
On the three-year loss of 115,000 members, James B. Lemler, Episcopal director of mission, said in an interview that the totals "are not more than we expected." Lemler also said that officials were heartened that average Sunday attendance in 2005 did not decline as it did in the previous two years. The average Sunday worship attendance in 2005 was 787,000 people, down only 8,500.
So the article itself suggests things have flattened out. But more to the point, TEC's most recent membership stats as of Jan 2007 of 2005 parochial reports found here [2] give "total active baptized members" of 2,369,477. The difference of 2,369,477 - 2,205,376 = 164,101 which is about 50 000 greater than the loss between 2005 and 2002. What does this mean? Well, I'll skip Disraeli - "lies, damned lies, and statistics" - and say I dislike church statistics because a) too often the numbers are used to clobber the opposition, and b) the bean counting of church members is imprecise. An example of this bean counter clobbering and counter clobbering can be found in the analysis prepared by the Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network - see [3] - and countered by a group called Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh - see [4]. I think we should keep the membership issue to a minimum. The latest numbers do suggest that the numbers are flat. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 23:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
There was a steep decline in membership during the '60s and into the '70s as with most mainline Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church. This is mentioned and referenced. Does anyone equate this with the civil rights movement? Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 00:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
The Church of England first used Sunday Attendance in the census of 30 March 1851 and it has been criticized by methodologists ever since. For example, does a change in Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) simply mean a change in frequency of church attendance? In the life of a church, active membership could remain flat while its Average Sunday Attendance goes down as members opt to attend only twice a month. Should many opt to come three times a month, the Average Sunday Attendance increases and yet the total active membership will not have changed. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 00:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I understand your points, but even the most ardent pro-TEC supporters like Louie Crew acknowledge that TEC has hemorrhaged members over the last 40 years and TEC itself admits drops since 2003, as my links (and the links previously posted) pointed out. While there may be an argument that there is more to the story, the current discussion of membership is completely biased in favor of TEC (and I am an Episcopalian, but I am pretty tired of the spin).
Shoot, this year alone the Virginia secessions are larger than several dozen whole dioceses. I’d like to see some support for the proposition that it has been flat since 2003. And it’s not a post hoc fallacy to suppose that it was partly based on Gene Robinson. His consecration is the single most disruptive thing to happen to our church in my lifetime. I have never been in a Wikipedia edit war, and I admit that I am not that committed, but it is a shame that ideology trumps objectivity. The edits I made were incredibly cautious and arguably don't even begin to tell the story of the exodus that has happened in the last 3.5 years.
I don't know where you are getting your stats from, but just look at TEC's own self-reported stats: 846,000 in 2002 (the year before Robinson), and 787,000 ASA in 2005. Conspicuously absent from TEC is official reporting from 2006, even though we're almost done with 2007, and, as noted above, 2007 has witnessed a hemorrhage of whole churches leaving. Furthermore, this is on the back of major declines in attendance in the last 40 years.
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Average_Sunday_Attendance_1995-05_by_Domestic_Diocese.pdf
It's not accurate to chalk these major numbers changes to methodology. Also relevant to my church's story is the alarming increase in the average age, now somewhere around 57.
Respectfully,--ReasonandRevelation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ReasonandRevelation (talk • contribs) 18:09, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
If Robinson's consecration is the most disruptive thing to happen to the ECUSA in your lifetime, you must be too young to remember the issues of the ordination of women and the 1979 prayer book. There's nothing wrong with discussing the numbers, but only a statistical analysis will tell you whether the change since 2003 is statistically significant or not (and it would have to be cited; we can't do our own statistical analyses here), and we would have to cite someone else's claim that the membership loss is due to Robinson. Interpreting the numbers ourselves is original research. —Angr 20:57, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, OR must be avoided. Do not speculate anything that cannot be cited. -- SECisek 05:21, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
All I have done is cite pure statistics. I think that yall are coming up with methodological shortcomings to justify yourp position. It is equally highly suspect that TEC has had flat membership in the last 40 years and conspicuously biased to let that be the whole story. If you want to add to the tale, do so, but it is virtually beyond debate that we have lost members and churches in alarming numbers in the last 3.5 years--TEC ITSELF admits that.
I note you have not contradicted the stats I provided above (nor the links that were several times deleted).
For the record, Robinson's consecration and the aftermath far outstrips anything that occurred 30 years ago. Far more people and churches leaving, and the Anglican Communion on the brink of collapse. At any rate, if you are more adamant than I about this Wikipedia article, you will win the edit war, but that does not make it right. If you think that 2003 is an inappropriate date from which to analyze, you should participate in telling a balanced story for the last few decades. I have made very cautious changes that have been edited out many times. This is why Wikipedia is a propaganda tool for controverial topics. --ReasonandRevelation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ReasonandRevelation (talk • contribs) 14:08, 17 September 2007
Do you seriously think the membership numbers of ECUSA and number of churches in it wouldn't have decreased if Robinson hadn't been consecrated? Or that the Anglican Communion would be any less "on the brink of collapse"??? The current crisis is way bigger than one little bishop in New Hampshire. —Angr 14:14, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
User:ReasonandRevelation, two points. Point one: no one doubts that TEC membership has dropped substantially in the last 40 years. It says so in the article. Since about 2000, active baptized membership has been remarkably flat - numerous references support this claim. They contradict your assertion. Point two: the ordination of women has had serious and long lasting effects on the TEC. Parishes left the TEC. Members left the TEC. Dioceses and Provinces in the Anglican Communion have been out of communion with the TEC for thirty years. The ordination of women has already split the communion. No one much talks about this now. Bishop Schori recently made comments that reflects both these points - see US Primate taks a 'long, calm view"
“ The bishop acknowledged the conservatives in her church - those people jarred by 35 years of constant change from the ordination of women through the inclusion of children to revisions in the prayer book - are fuelling the outrage of some outspoken African bishops over the open acceptance of gays and lesbians.
However, Jefferts Schori, who calculates the disgruntled at one half of one per cent of her 2.4 million-member church, calculates the international disgruntlement at a similar level
”
and
“ Asked if her position as the first female primate adds fuel to the fire, Jefferts Schori acknowledged female leadership runs out of step with the culture in some places in the Anglican Communion.
But, she added, with a strong glint of humour, “they treated my predecessor (Bishop Frank Griswold) the same way they treated me.”
And, since 14 primates refused to take part in a Eucharist with Bishop Griswold at a previous primates’ meeting, while only seven refused to participate with her in Dar-Es-Salaam, she figures progress is being made.
”
Note Bishop Schori has a PhD in science and worked as a scientist. I think of all of us she probably has the best grasp of numbers and statistics. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 15:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
We are getting into an editing war in this section with flat liners versus precipitous decliners. Perhaps we need to expand this section to lay out some basic stats and then give the various interpretations of what these stats mean. clariosophic 20:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)clariosophic 20:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I've thought about doing this before: it would involve lots of graphs and charts. The Episcopal Church's fourth bishop was so convinced that the TEC would go extinct by 1820 that he gave up and retired. The real precipitous decline was in the 1780s and another decline in the 1920s. The problem with all these church numbers is the 'anchoring problem'. The TEC hit a Mt Everest peak in the 1950s and all the discussion since then has been anchored to those numbers. And it isn't just the TEC, all the mainline Protestant churches showed a huge spike in the 1950s compared to the 1920s. Essentially, the US experienced two Great Awakenings a century apart and everything has not glistened like those golden eras since. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 20:53, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
There is an editing war going on. It is between those who can read data honestly and those who obfuscate. When an editor quotes Hadaway, the director of research for pecusa and then balks at his characterization of the drop in membership as "precipitous," we have a bias problem. The 2.2 number is from Hadaway. The description "precipitous: is also from Hadaway. The escalating losses in 2003-2005 is from official pecusa documents. Let the truth be told. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonyseel (talk • contribs) 02:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I can read numbers very well. Please read this, the Episcopal Church's most recent membership stats as of Jan 2007 of 2005 parochial reports found here [5] at the Episcopal Church's website and see if the "total active baptized members" is not 2,369,477. Hadaway and the Christian Century article are using older numbers. Hadaway's analysis is from 2004. The Christian Century is from 2006. The latest numbers are from Jan 2007. The difference of 2,369,477 - 2,205,376 = 164,101 which is about 50 000 greater than the loss between 2005 and 2002. Thus, there are swings up and down over the short term which indicates a flat or plateau trend. When the new numbers come out in a few months perhaps it will be down or up. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 02:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
The latest available figures should be used, the article you insist on basing this section on is now outdated. The fact you keep referring to the church as pecusa, rather than its modern title of TEC is interesting. Don't keep changing the article until you achive consensus on this talk page, and bear in mind the 3 revert rule, which you've probably already broken. —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Underdown (talk • contribs) 12:09, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Your selective use of the 3 revert rule is interesting. My first edit was removed because I didn't cite sources. When I cited sources that were already being used, my edit was still removed. What you call dated is more recent information than what was cited previously for the 2.3 million number and my figure is from the director of research for pecusa (btw, I use pecusa because it is the official name and it identifies the sectarian nature of recent innovations. You may not remember the lawsuit that 815 filed or threatened to file against Bp. Wantland in order to retain this name). The fact that you are clinging to outdated numbers speaks volumes. This will all be settled when pecusa releases the 2006 figures. This argument is not about accuracy, because if it was you would acknowledge the most recent figures. It is about maintaining a position not founded in fact - that position is that pecusa is not losing thousands of members a year. pecusa is losing thousands of members a year and your attempts to cover this up will ultimately fail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonyseel (talk • contribs) 14:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Membership
Wassupwestcoast, why are you reverting my changes regarding membership? The current statement that membership is flat for the last few decades, with no ASA discussion (far better indicator) and people removing discussion of age trends is highly biased. Even pro-TEC folks don't believe this distorted view. There can be no doubt that we have shrunk. The only question is how much and what is the most accurate measure. --User:ReasonandRevelation 21:56, 12 September 2007
I'm the one who reverted, mostly on the basis of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy you made in connecting the drop in membership since 2003 with the election of Gene Robinson. Someone could probably show a drop in membership since 2001 too; should we connect that drop in membership with 9/11? Or the drop in membership since 2000 with the presidency of George W. Bush? —Angr 22:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
User:ReasonandRevelation, the reference you provided is already referenced in the text (Ref.57) and it is quoting old data. Please look at Ref 55 to 59. There was a dip in 2003 that was recovered by 2005. This might be a statistical fluke or represent a recovery. "The Christian Century" article of Nov 2006 - see [1]- gives a count for active membership of 2,205,376. This is stated as being a "net loss of nearly 115,000 members over the past three years. To quote the article:
On the three-year loss of 115,000 members, James B. Lemler, Episcopal director of mission, said in an interview that the totals "are not more than we expected." Lemler also said that officials were heartened that average Sunday attendance in 2005 did not decline as it did in the previous two years. The average Sunday worship attendance in 2005 was 787,000 people, down only 8,500.
So the article itself suggests things have flattened out. But more to the point, TEC's most recent membership stats as of Jan 2007 of 2005 parochial reports found here [2] give "total active baptized members" of 2,369,477. The difference of 2,369,477 - 2,205,376 = 164,101 which is about 50 000 greater than the loss between 2005 and 2002. What does this mean? Well, I'll skip Disraeli - "lies, damned lies, and statistics" - and say I dislike church statistics because a) too often the numbers are used to clobber the opposition, and b) the bean counting of church members is imprecise. An example of this bean counter clobbering and counter clobbering can be found in the analysis prepared by the Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network - see [3] - and countered by a group called Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh - see [4]. I think we should keep the membership issue to a minimum. The latest numbers do suggest that the numbers are flat. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 23:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
There was a steep decline in membership during the '60s and into the '70s as with most mainline Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church. This is mentioned and referenced. Does anyone equate this with the civil rights movement? Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 00:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
The Church of England first used Sunday Attendance in the census of 30 March 1851 and it has been criticized by methodologists ever since. For example, does a change in Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) simply mean a change in frequency of church attendance? In the life of a church, active membership could remain flat while its Average Sunday Attendance goes down as members opt to attend only twice a month. Should many opt to come three times a month, the Average Sunday Attendance increases and yet the total active membership will not have changed. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 00:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I understand your points, but even the most ardent pro-TEC supporters like Louie Crew acknowledge that TEC has hemorrhaged members over the last 40 years and TEC itself admits drops since 2003, as my links (and the links previously posted) pointed out. While there may be an argument that there is more to the story, the current discussion of membership is completely biased in favor of TEC (and I am an Episcopalian, but I am pretty tired of the spin).
Shoot, this year alone the Virginia secessions are larger than several dozen whole dioceses. I’d like to see some support for the proposition that it has been flat since 2003. And it’s not a post hoc fallacy to suppose that it was partly based on Gene Robinson. His consecration is the single most disruptive thing to happen to our church in my lifetime. I have never been in a Wikipedia edit war, and I admit that I am not that committed, but it is a shame that ideology trumps objectivity. The edits I made were incredibly cautious and arguably don't even begin to tell the story of the exodus that has happened in the last 3.5 years.
I don't know where you are getting your stats from, but just look at TEC's own self-reported stats: 846,000 in 2002 (the year before Robinson), and 787,000 ASA in 2005. Conspicuously absent from TEC is official reporting from 2006, even though we're almost done with 2007, and, as noted above, 2007 has witnessed a hemorrhage of whole churches leaving. Furthermore, this is on the back of major declines in attendance in the last 40 years.
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Average_Sunday_Attendance_1995-05_by_Domestic_Diocese.pdf
It's not accurate to chalk these major numbers changes to methodology. Also relevant to my church's story is the alarming increase in the average age, now somewhere around 57.
Respectfully,--ReasonandRevelation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ReasonandRevelation (talk • contribs) 18:09, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
If Robinson's consecration is the most disruptive thing to happen to the ECUSA in your lifetime, you must be too young to remember the issues of the ordination of women and the 1979 prayer book. There's nothing wrong with discussing the numbers, but only a statistical analysis will tell you whether the change since 2003 is statistically significant or not (and it would have to be cited; we can't do our own statistical analyses here), and we would have to cite someone else's claim that the membership loss is due to Robinson. Interpreting the numbers ourselves is original research. —Angr 20:57, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, OR must be avoided. Do not speculate anything that cannot be cited. -- SECisek 05:21, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
All I have done is cite pure statistics. I think that yall are coming up with methodological shortcomings to justify yourp position. It is equally highly suspect that TEC has had flat membership in the last 40 years and conspicuously biased to let that be the whole story. If you want to add to the tale, do so, but it is virtually beyond debate that we have lost members and churches in alarming numbers in the last 3.5 years--TEC ITSELF admits that.
I note you have not contradicted the stats I provided above (nor the links that were several times deleted).
For the record, Robinson's consecration and the aftermath far outstrips anything that occurred 30 years ago. Far more people and churches leaving, and the Anglican Communion on the brink of collapse. At any rate, if you are more adamant than I about this Wikipedia article, you will win the edit war, but that does not make it right. If you think that 2003 is an inappropriate date from which to analyze, you should participate in telling a balanced story for the last few decades. I have made very cautious changes that have been edited out many times. This is why Wikipedia is a propaganda tool for controverial topics. --ReasonandRevelation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ReasonandRevelation (talk • contribs) 14:08, 17 September 2007
Do you seriously think the membership numbers of ECUSA and number of churches in it wouldn't have decreased if Robinson hadn't been consecrated? Or that the Anglican Communion would be any less "on the brink of collapse"??? The current crisis is way bigger than one little bishop in New Hampshire. —Angr 14:14, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
User:ReasonandRevelation, two points. Point one: no one doubts that TEC membership has dropped substantially in the last 40 years. It says so in the article. Since about 2000, active baptized membership has been remarkably flat - numerous references support this claim. They contradict your assertion. Point two: the ordination of women has had serious and long lasting effects on the TEC. Parishes left the TEC. Members left the TEC. Dioceses and Provinces in the Anglican Communion have been out of communion with the TEC for thirty years. The ordination of women has already split the communion. No one much talks about this now. Bishop Schori recently made comments that reflects both these points - see US Primate taks a 'long, calm view"
“ The bishop acknowledged the conservatives in her church - those people jarred by 35 years of constant change from the ordination of women through the inclusion of children to revisions in the prayer book - are fuelling the outrage of some outspoken African bishops over the open acceptance of gays and lesbians.
However, Jefferts Schori, who calculates the disgruntled at one half of one per cent of her 2.4 million-member church, calculates the international disgruntlement at a similar level
”
and
“ Asked if her position as the first female primate adds fuel to the fire, Jefferts Schori acknowledged female leadership runs out of step with the culture in some places in the Anglican Communion.
But, she added, with a strong glint of humour, “they treated my predecessor (Bishop Frank Griswold) the same way they treated me.”
And, since 14 primates refused to take part in a Eucharist with Bishop Griswold at a previous primates’ meeting, while only seven refused to participate with her in Dar-Es-Salaam, she figures progress is being made.
”
Note Bishop Schori has a PhD in science and worked as a scientist. I think of all of us she probably has the best grasp of numbers and statistics. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 15:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
We are getting into an editing war in this section with flat liners versus precipitous decliners. Perhaps we need to expand this section to lay out some basic stats and then give the various interpretations of what these stats mean. clariosophic 20:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)clariosophic 20:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I've thought about doing this before: it would involve lots of graphs and charts. The Episcopal Church's fourth bishop was so convinced that the TEC would go extinct by 1820 that he gave up and retired. The real precipitous decline was in the 1780s and another decline in the 1920s. The problem with all these church numbers is the 'anchoring problem'. The TEC hit a Mt Everest peak in the 1950s and all the discussion since then has been anchored to those numbers. And it isn't just the TEC, all the mainline Protestant churches showed a huge spike in the 1950s compared to the 1920s. Essentially, the US experienced two Great Awakenings a century apart and everything has not glistened like those golden eras since. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 20:53, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
There is an editing war going on. It is between those who can read data honestly and those who obfuscate. When an editor quotes Hadaway, the director of research for pecusa and then balks at his characterization of the drop in membership as "precipitous," we have a bias problem. The 2.2 number is from Hadaway. The description "precipitous: is also from Hadaway. The escalating losses in 2003-2005 is from official pecusa documents. Let the truth be told. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonyseel (talk • contribs) 02:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I can read numbers very well. Please read this, the Episcopal Church's most recent membership stats as of Jan 2007 of 2005 parochial reports found here [5] at the Episcopal Church's website and see if the "total active baptized members" is not 2,369,477. Hadaway and the Christian Century article are using older numbers. Hadaway's analysis is from 2004. The Christian Century is from 2006. The latest numbers are from Jan 2007. The difference of 2,369,477 - 2,205,376 = 164,101 which is about 50 000 greater than the loss between 2005 and 2002. Thus, there are swings up and down over the short term which indicates a flat or plateau trend. When the new numbers come out in a few months perhaps it will be down or up. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 02:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
The latest available figures should be used, the article you insist on basing this section on is now outdated. The fact you keep referring to the church as pecusa, rather than its modern title of TEC is interesting. Don't keep changing the article until you achive consensus on this talk page, and bear in mind the 3 revert rule, which you've probably already broken. —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Underdown (talk • contribs) 12:09, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Your selective use of the 3 revert rule is interesting. My first edit was removed because I didn't cite sources. When I cited sources that were already being used, my edit was still removed. What you call dated is more recent information than what was cited previously for the 2.3 million number and my figure is from the director of research for pecusa (btw, I use pecusa because it is the official name and it identifies the sectarian nature of recent innovations. You may not remember the lawsuit that 815 filed or threatened to file against Bp. Wantland in order to retain this name). The fact that you are clinging to outdated numbers speaks volumes. This will all be settled when pecusa releases the 2006 figures. This argument is not about accuracy, because if it was you would acknowledge the most recent figures. It is about maintaining a position not founded in fact - that position is that pecusa is not losing thousands of members a year. pecusa is losing thousands of members a year and your attempts to cover this up will ultimately fail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonyseel (talk • contribs) 14:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Monday, October 22, 2007
Abp Carey Visits R.I. Parish
From The Providence Jornal:
Former Anglican prelate visits Wickford
By Richard C. Dujardin
Journal Religion Writer
George Carey, who as the archbishop of Canterbury oversaw the worldwide Anglican Communion for nine years, until 2002, speaks in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church parish hall, in North Kingstown, yesterday morning.
NORTH KINGSTOWN — Anglican Archbishop George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, told a gathering at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church yesterday that it is “pretty obvious” the 78-million-member body is deeply divided over the issue of homosexuality, and it is “terribly important that we pray for the unity of the church.”
Archbishop Carey stepped down as the primate of All England and titular leader of the worldwide communion in 2002, a year before the U.S. Episcopal Church’s General Convention authorized the ordination of V. Gene Robinson, who is gay, as the bishop of New Hampshire. Archbishop Carey was in North Kingstown to take part in the local church’s celebration of its 300th anniversary.
He said yesterday that the continuing conflict over Bishop Robinson’s ordination and concerning same-sex relationships could seriously weaken all the churches in the communion, not only those in Africa and other parts of the developing world that view the ordination as a violation of the Gospel but those U.S. churches that supported the New Hampshire ordination.
“I know there are some clergy who say they don’t care whether the Anglican Communion stays together or not. But they should care,” he said.
“If the Anglican Communion separates, or if the Lambeth Conference [the once-every-10-year gathering of the world’s Anglican bishops, slated for next year] doesn’t happen or happens with a reduced number of bishops,” he said, there will be “a chasm between the developing world, where Christianity is strong and growing, and us on the Western side. That growing church will be weakened because they will not have access to our strength, and West will be weakened because we will not have the exciting stories of their faith and what God is doing.”
Archbishop Carey, 71, came out of the evangelical wing of the Church of England when the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher recommended to Queen Elizabeth II that she appoint him archbishop of Canterbury. In the early 1970s, he taught at St. John’s Seminary, in Nottingham, England, where one of his students was a young American, Philip Tierney, now the rector of St. Paul’s.
During a lecture yesterday in the parish hall, the archbishop recalled that Father Tierney, during a student Christmas party, joining others in an impersonation of the rock group the Monkees.
“No, we were pretending to be the Beach Boys,” the rector interrupted.
“Well,” the archbishop quipped, “You looked like monkeys.”
In the lecture and two sermons yesterday morning, as well as in an interview, the retired prelate touched on a number of topics, including his relations with the late Pope John Paul II, his assessment of Pope Benedict XVI, the difficulties in the Middle East, and the challenges brought on by Islam.
He said he met John Paul roughly eight times, once in which the pope invited him to bring his cope and miter. What the pope was signaling, he said, was that “I should come as a bishop” — particularly interesting because the Vatican has never recognized the validity of Anglican orders.
The Roman Catholic Church, he said, “focuses a lot on symbols, not so much on statements, and here on the level of symbol Rome was saying that the Anglican Communion is an important part of the Christian world.”
The archbishop said he knew Pope Benedict, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in his role as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
“He doesn’t have the charisma of his predecessor, but he has immense intellectual gifts. I must say unity with the Anglican Communion is not on the top of his priorities,” the archbishop said. “But there is no reason why it should be when he looks at the state we are in. We are not in any condition to be united to at the present time until we sort ourselves out.”
The archbishop, who is chairman of the Anglican Church’s Fellowship of Reconciliation in the Middle East, is always looking to create new opportunities for the West and Islam to understand each other. But it is not easy, he said, because while Islam is essentially a peaceful religion, some of the verses in the Koran lend themselves to violence and hatred of others, Christians and Jews particularly.
“I got into trouble three years ago by saying that what Islam needs is a new theological method, to look critically at statements in the Koran so that the greater number of peaceful verses can dominate and lead to fresh interpretations,” he said.
In the Middle East, the people who are suffering most now, he said, are the Palestinians, and he believes Christians should pray that the United States should “lean on” Israel to alleviate the terrible situation facing Palestinians, particularly those living in Gaza.
While the grounds for invading Iraq — its alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction — proved unfounded, he said, the coalition forces cannot simply leave. “We must not abandon the Iraqis, because we know al-Qaida and other extremist groups are looking for an opportunity to get in.”
And there is another reason for opposing Muslim extremism, in Carey’s view: the rise of militant secularism in Europe, which he asserted is largely a response to “intolerant religion” as displayed by Muslim fundamentalists.
The archbishop will deliver his final talk of his weekend visit tonight at 7:30 in St. Paul’s parish hall, 55 Main St., Wickford. His theme: “How to be Infectious Christians in a Culture Immunized against It.”
Former Anglican prelate visits Wickford
By Richard C. Dujardin
Journal Religion Writer
George Carey, who as the archbishop of Canterbury oversaw the worldwide Anglican Communion for nine years, until 2002, speaks in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church parish hall, in North Kingstown, yesterday morning.
NORTH KINGSTOWN — Anglican Archbishop George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, told a gathering at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church yesterday that it is “pretty obvious” the 78-million-member body is deeply divided over the issue of homosexuality, and it is “terribly important that we pray for the unity of the church.”
Archbishop Carey stepped down as the primate of All England and titular leader of the worldwide communion in 2002, a year before the U.S. Episcopal Church’s General Convention authorized the ordination of V. Gene Robinson, who is gay, as the bishop of New Hampshire. Archbishop Carey was in North Kingstown to take part in the local church’s celebration of its 300th anniversary.
He said yesterday that the continuing conflict over Bishop Robinson’s ordination and concerning same-sex relationships could seriously weaken all the churches in the communion, not only those in Africa and other parts of the developing world that view the ordination as a violation of the Gospel but those U.S. churches that supported the New Hampshire ordination.
“I know there are some clergy who say they don’t care whether the Anglican Communion stays together or not. But they should care,” he said.
“If the Anglican Communion separates, or if the Lambeth Conference [the once-every-10-year gathering of the world’s Anglican bishops, slated for next year] doesn’t happen or happens with a reduced number of bishops,” he said, there will be “a chasm between the developing world, where Christianity is strong and growing, and us on the Western side. That growing church will be weakened because they will not have access to our strength, and West will be weakened because we will not have the exciting stories of their faith and what God is doing.”
Archbishop Carey, 71, came out of the evangelical wing of the Church of England when the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher recommended to Queen Elizabeth II that she appoint him archbishop of Canterbury. In the early 1970s, he taught at St. John’s Seminary, in Nottingham, England, where one of his students was a young American, Philip Tierney, now the rector of St. Paul’s.
During a lecture yesterday in the parish hall, the archbishop recalled that Father Tierney, during a student Christmas party, joining others in an impersonation of the rock group the Monkees.
“No, we were pretending to be the Beach Boys,” the rector interrupted.
“Well,” the archbishop quipped, “You looked like monkeys.”
In the lecture and two sermons yesterday morning, as well as in an interview, the retired prelate touched on a number of topics, including his relations with the late Pope John Paul II, his assessment of Pope Benedict XVI, the difficulties in the Middle East, and the challenges brought on by Islam.
He said he met John Paul roughly eight times, once in which the pope invited him to bring his cope and miter. What the pope was signaling, he said, was that “I should come as a bishop” — particularly interesting because the Vatican has never recognized the validity of Anglican orders.
The Roman Catholic Church, he said, “focuses a lot on symbols, not so much on statements, and here on the level of symbol Rome was saying that the Anglican Communion is an important part of the Christian world.”
The archbishop said he knew Pope Benedict, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in his role as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
“He doesn’t have the charisma of his predecessor, but he has immense intellectual gifts. I must say unity with the Anglican Communion is not on the top of his priorities,” the archbishop said. “But there is no reason why it should be when he looks at the state we are in. We are not in any condition to be united to at the present time until we sort ourselves out.”
The archbishop, who is chairman of the Anglican Church’s Fellowship of Reconciliation in the Middle East, is always looking to create new opportunities for the West and Islam to understand each other. But it is not easy, he said, because while Islam is essentially a peaceful religion, some of the verses in the Koran lend themselves to violence and hatred of others, Christians and Jews particularly.
“I got into trouble three years ago by saying that what Islam needs is a new theological method, to look critically at statements in the Koran so that the greater number of peaceful verses can dominate and lead to fresh interpretations,” he said.
In the Middle East, the people who are suffering most now, he said, are the Palestinians, and he believes Christians should pray that the United States should “lean on” Israel to alleviate the terrible situation facing Palestinians, particularly those living in Gaza.
While the grounds for invading Iraq — its alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction — proved unfounded, he said, the coalition forces cannot simply leave. “We must not abandon the Iraqis, because we know al-Qaida and other extremist groups are looking for an opportunity to get in.”
And there is another reason for opposing Muslim extremism, in Carey’s view: the rise of militant secularism in Europe, which he asserted is largely a response to “intolerant religion” as displayed by Muslim fundamentalists.
The archbishop will deliver his final talk of his weekend visit tonight at 7:30 in St. Paul’s parish hall, 55 Main St., Wickford. His theme: “How to be Infectious Christians in a Culture Immunized against It.”
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
St. Stephen’s Announces Intention to Realign
The leadership of St. Stephen’s in Sewickley, PA, the largest church in the Diocese of Pittsburgh in both membership and Sunday attendance, has announced its intention to realign with a different Province of the Anglican Communion.
To the Members of St Stephens Church, Sewickley
A Letter about Denominational Realignment
From your Rector and Vestry
October 12, 2007
Dear Friends in Christ,
I write to you as your pastor and brother in Christ in a season of great importance concerning our future, and I write with the unanimous support of our Vestry. For decades under multiple generations of leaders this parish has been filled with glad followers of Jesus Christ, working for the mission of his Gospel, and laboring for the reform and renewal of the Episcopal Church - under Holy Scripture and through the Holy Spirit. At St Stephens we have been deeply thankful for this call upon our lives; we love the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we love this Church.
A Moment of Decision
As we enter the latter part of this decade, it is now evident that differences of faith and practice have torn the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, probably beyond mending. The challenges we face are rooted in longstanding developments inside western culture that are spreading worldwide. These challenges cannot be avoided, for we face them everywhere. I thank God for your endurance, your courage, and your clarity in this important struggle. We have come to a moment of decision. After years of effort and much personal anguish, I now believe that the Episcopal Church has clarified and hardened its opposition to the historic and
biblical Christian faith to such an extent that we cannot pursue our gospel mission fruitfully while remaining under its authority. Your Vestry concurs . For the sake of our health and future mission, we believe that we must now partner with our diocese to realign our congregation and affiliate with a different Province of the Anglican Communion.
What is the Issue?
The presenting issue is the question of human sexuality and in particular the morality of same sex relations. Same-sex relations in a committed partnership are now held to be consistent with the Christian faith and central to the values of the Gospel by the dominant majority of Episcopal Church leadership. In 2003 the Episcopal Church confirmed Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. It was a defining moment for our church. Subsequent Episcopal councils have rejected widespread and repeated appeals from the Anglican Communion to step back. The decision of 2003 has proven to be an irreversible action with permanent consequences. The Episcopal Church is now committed to spreading a gospel of sexual liberation throughout the Communion and the world.
The underlying issues go far deeper than sex, to the very heart of our faith, including our understanding of the Triune God, the devastating impact of the fall upon human nature, the unique work of Jesus as the only Savior of the world, our understanding of God‟s Gospel mission to the world, the interdependence of the Anglican Communion, the sanctity of human life, and – above it all – the final authority and full trustworthiness of Holy Scripture guiding us
through these matters. At its core, this is a dispute about whether God has definitively spoken to us in the pages of the Bible, and about whether those pages can be read, understood, and trusted in their plain and natural sense by common people. Though our faith is in concert with the majority of our worldwide Anglican Communion and the historical roots of our Church, we now find ourselves fundamentally divided from the leadership in the Episcopal Church over these issues of first importance.
The tragic result of abandoning the guidance of scripture is that modern people who are caught in sexual brokenness are denied the blessings of the gospel: including forgiveness, the new birth, and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to reorder our deepest affections into Christ‟s image. Many of us who were won to faith in Jesus out of the ruins of the sexual revolution feel this loss most keenly. The Gospel of new life is being denied to a whole subsection of our culture.
Liberal Intolerance
We have noticed a widespread and growing trend in the Episcopal Church as it pursues its progressive agenda. A distorted form of "dialogue" is widely used to undermine confidence in Scripture and overstate confidence in uncertain science. In many places congregations and dioceses are no longer free to recruit, develop or choose leaders who share their historic faith and biblical values. Mandatory diocesan assessments are used to compel parish funding of causes in opposition to parish values. If the trend continues, acceptance will be soon required of behavior that Scripture reveals to be immoral and destructive. Litigation, hostile property claims, and presentments are being widely used against congregations and their leaders who in conscience resist or who seek the freedom to realign with other parts of our Communion. It is
clear that opposition to classical, creedal, biblical theology and ministries is being orchestrated from the highest levels of the Episcopal Church. We are plainly being told to submit or to leave.
Our Appeals
Mindful of Jesus‟ guidance we have worked to bring our concerns to the leadership of the Anglican Communion. This appeal process has been going on for 10 years, and leaders from this parish have been intimately involved. We have been heartened by the broad attention and support we have received. We hoped that the Lambeth Conference, the Windsor Report, and the Tanzania Communiqué would provide a workable way forward for our ministries and the Anglican Communion itself.
We were stunned by the rapid, summary dismissal of the Tanzania Communiqué by our House of Bishops and Executive Council early this year, and by their failure to provide adequate protections for dissenting dioceses and parishes. We understand this to signal a decided rejection of Anglican Communion authority, of our most deeply held values, and of our future ministries. We believe there shall be no viable long term future for our parishes in this church unless we make unacceptable compromises on matters of first importance.
What What is God Doing?
It seems to us that God is raising something up, even while he is bringing something down. We believe we are seeing the end of denominationalism, built on geographical and hierarchical structures that no longer hold to the faith that gave them birth. In their place in the West, we are witnessing the rise of a creative family of networks, built on shared conciliar leadership, non-geographical structures, local property ownership, vital evangelistic mission commitments to the contemporary world, solid confidence in the full trustworthiness of the Bible, and a common vision for disciple-making. These networks are unified by people and congregations freely believing in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, eagerly learning from and trusting in the Scriptures, and the confession of the Nicene faith. All of this testifies to the work of the Holy Spirit. Threats are not used to gain consent, but instead God is drawing people who happily surrender to his gracious gospel work. There is a growing movement of this kind within American Anglicanism called the Common Cause Network. We believe God is behind it, and we wish to join it and help it grow.
What is our Plan?
Working with friends overseas and around the country, our Diocese has developed a plan to realign with an overseas Province of the Anglican Communion which shares our faith and our values. In doing this, we would also partner with the growing Anglican network taking shape in North America outside the Episcopal Church. Parishes that wished to remain in the Episcopal Church would be given that option.
This realignment will take three actions of our diocesan Convention to complete. The first step comes at Diocesan Convention this November 2nd and 3rd. Steps two and three would likely come next October or November. Steps one and two would change our Constitution, giving us the right to choose our affiliation within the Anglican Communion. Step three would actually select the new Province of affiliation. We are one of four, perhaps five dioceses that are preparing to take these steps together over the next months. Other dioceses and parishes look on with hope to see if a realignment path can be opened. We believe we have the right and responsibility to do this.
What is the Cost?
Our plan will be opposed, certainly in Convention, and probably in civil and church courts as well. We believe we have a strong case and significant precedent within the Anglican Communion and American law. But there are difficulties to face. There are many who would love to see us go, but not with any of the church buildings or endowments we own. There are many congregations in our diocese who find their survival threatened by these developments within our Church. No one, on either side of this dispute, looks forward to extended litigation. The cost could be sharp for many, but the price of inaction would be even worse. We will probe every opening for a negotiated settlement along the way that is fair, generous, and gives our ministries the opportunity to move forward unfettered into God‟s future. It will
take patience, endurance, wisdom, grace and much prayer to see what is possible. Perhaps the Episcopal Church will respond with a solution that will pull our Communion back from the brink of division. We should have a good picture of how this is likely to resolve within a year, and perhaps sooner. We trust God for the road ahead, confident of his leading. It is a walk of faith, like that of Abraham. If there is a difficult cost, we ask God to give us the heart to bear it with joy, and with trust in him. We remember that Jesus‟ most oft repeated command was, “Fear
not…”
What is our Heart?
We have not wanted to act in haste, as our congregational life over the past 40 years attests. We are concerned that the history of the Church is littered with the wreckage of strife and division. We do not wish to add to these ruins. We are mindful as well that our own hands are not clean in the development of this history, and are particularly brokenhearted over the pride that has too often accompanied our witness. We beg God and others across our Church for the forgiveness we need. So we wish to carry our convictions with grace and humility, not with judgment. We know that
God is concerned to correct things in us as well as in others. We are eager for that correction. We want to speak with clarity and charity towards those we oppose.
We are mindful of the wisdom of Gamaliel (Acts 5.38-40), who in a season of persecution persuaded the religious authorities to release the Apostle‟s with these words: “Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” His speech persuaded them. I think, in the end, this is what we will need to do: to carry ourselves with „clarity and charity‟, and to trust one another to God, confident that in due time he will sort it out. More than anything we wish to see God‟s Gospel future for our Church. Towards that future, we now move, asking your partnership, your prayer, and your support.
Geoffrey W Chapman, Rector Fred Dale, Senior Warden Michael Mullin, Junior Warden
With the unanimous support of the Vestry
To the Members of St Stephens Church, Sewickley
A Letter about Denominational Realignment
From your Rector and Vestry
October 12, 2007
Dear Friends in Christ,
I write to you as your pastor and brother in Christ in a season of great importance concerning our future, and I write with the unanimous support of our Vestry. For decades under multiple generations of leaders this parish has been filled with glad followers of Jesus Christ, working for the mission of his Gospel, and laboring for the reform and renewal of the Episcopal Church - under Holy Scripture and through the Holy Spirit. At St Stephens we have been deeply thankful for this call upon our lives; we love the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we love this Church.
A Moment of Decision
As we enter the latter part of this decade, it is now evident that differences of faith and practice have torn the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, probably beyond mending. The challenges we face are rooted in longstanding developments inside western culture that are spreading worldwide. These challenges cannot be avoided, for we face them everywhere. I thank God for your endurance, your courage, and your clarity in this important struggle. We have come to a moment of decision. After years of effort and much personal anguish, I now believe that the Episcopal Church has clarified and hardened its opposition to the historic and
biblical Christian faith to such an extent that we cannot pursue our gospel mission fruitfully while remaining under its authority. Your Vestry concurs . For the sake of our health and future mission, we believe that we must now partner with our diocese to realign our congregation and affiliate with a different Province of the Anglican Communion.
What is the Issue?
The presenting issue is the question of human sexuality and in particular the morality of same sex relations. Same-sex relations in a committed partnership are now held to be consistent with the Christian faith and central to the values of the Gospel by the dominant majority of Episcopal Church leadership. In 2003 the Episcopal Church confirmed Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. It was a defining moment for our church. Subsequent Episcopal councils have rejected widespread and repeated appeals from the Anglican Communion to step back. The decision of 2003 has proven to be an irreversible action with permanent consequences. The Episcopal Church is now committed to spreading a gospel of sexual liberation throughout the Communion and the world.
The underlying issues go far deeper than sex, to the very heart of our faith, including our understanding of the Triune God, the devastating impact of the fall upon human nature, the unique work of Jesus as the only Savior of the world, our understanding of God‟s Gospel mission to the world, the interdependence of the Anglican Communion, the sanctity of human life, and – above it all – the final authority and full trustworthiness of Holy Scripture guiding us
through these matters. At its core, this is a dispute about whether God has definitively spoken to us in the pages of the Bible, and about whether those pages can be read, understood, and trusted in their plain and natural sense by common people. Though our faith is in concert with the majority of our worldwide Anglican Communion and the historical roots of our Church, we now find ourselves fundamentally divided from the leadership in the Episcopal Church over these issues of first importance.
The tragic result of abandoning the guidance of scripture is that modern people who are caught in sexual brokenness are denied the blessings of the gospel: including forgiveness, the new birth, and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to reorder our deepest affections into Christ‟s image. Many of us who were won to faith in Jesus out of the ruins of the sexual revolution feel this loss most keenly. The Gospel of new life is being denied to a whole subsection of our culture.
Liberal Intolerance
We have noticed a widespread and growing trend in the Episcopal Church as it pursues its progressive agenda. A distorted form of "dialogue" is widely used to undermine confidence in Scripture and overstate confidence in uncertain science. In many places congregations and dioceses are no longer free to recruit, develop or choose leaders who share their historic faith and biblical values. Mandatory diocesan assessments are used to compel parish funding of causes in opposition to parish values. If the trend continues, acceptance will be soon required of behavior that Scripture reveals to be immoral and destructive. Litigation, hostile property claims, and presentments are being widely used against congregations and their leaders who in conscience resist or who seek the freedom to realign with other parts of our Communion. It is
clear that opposition to classical, creedal, biblical theology and ministries is being orchestrated from the highest levels of the Episcopal Church. We are plainly being told to submit or to leave.
Our Appeals
Mindful of Jesus‟ guidance we have worked to bring our concerns to the leadership of the Anglican Communion. This appeal process has been going on for 10 years, and leaders from this parish have been intimately involved. We have been heartened by the broad attention and support we have received. We hoped that the Lambeth Conference, the Windsor Report, and the Tanzania Communiqué would provide a workable way forward for our ministries and the Anglican Communion itself.
We were stunned by the rapid, summary dismissal of the Tanzania Communiqué by our House of Bishops and Executive Council early this year, and by their failure to provide adequate protections for dissenting dioceses and parishes. We understand this to signal a decided rejection of Anglican Communion authority, of our most deeply held values, and of our future ministries. We believe there shall be no viable long term future for our parishes in this church unless we make unacceptable compromises on matters of first importance.
What What is God Doing?
It seems to us that God is raising something up, even while he is bringing something down. We believe we are seeing the end of denominationalism, built on geographical and hierarchical structures that no longer hold to the faith that gave them birth. In their place in the West, we are witnessing the rise of a creative family of networks, built on shared conciliar leadership, non-geographical structures, local property ownership, vital evangelistic mission commitments to the contemporary world, solid confidence in the full trustworthiness of the Bible, and a common vision for disciple-making. These networks are unified by people and congregations freely believing in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, eagerly learning from and trusting in the Scriptures, and the confession of the Nicene faith. All of this testifies to the work of the Holy Spirit. Threats are not used to gain consent, but instead God is drawing people who happily surrender to his gracious gospel work. There is a growing movement of this kind within American Anglicanism called the Common Cause Network. We believe God is behind it, and we wish to join it and help it grow.
What is our Plan?
Working with friends overseas and around the country, our Diocese has developed a plan to realign with an overseas Province of the Anglican Communion which shares our faith and our values. In doing this, we would also partner with the growing Anglican network taking shape in North America outside the Episcopal Church. Parishes that wished to remain in the Episcopal Church would be given that option.
This realignment will take three actions of our diocesan Convention to complete. The first step comes at Diocesan Convention this November 2nd and 3rd. Steps two and three would likely come next October or November. Steps one and two would change our Constitution, giving us the right to choose our affiliation within the Anglican Communion. Step three would actually select the new Province of affiliation. We are one of four, perhaps five dioceses that are preparing to take these steps together over the next months. Other dioceses and parishes look on with hope to see if a realignment path can be opened. We believe we have the right and responsibility to do this.
What is the Cost?
Our plan will be opposed, certainly in Convention, and probably in civil and church courts as well. We believe we have a strong case and significant precedent within the Anglican Communion and American law. But there are difficulties to face. There are many who would love to see us go, but not with any of the church buildings or endowments we own. There are many congregations in our diocese who find their survival threatened by these developments within our Church. No one, on either side of this dispute, looks forward to extended litigation. The cost could be sharp for many, but the price of inaction would be even worse. We will probe every opening for a negotiated settlement along the way that is fair, generous, and gives our ministries the opportunity to move forward unfettered into God‟s future. It will
take patience, endurance, wisdom, grace and much prayer to see what is possible. Perhaps the Episcopal Church will respond with a solution that will pull our Communion back from the brink of division. We should have a good picture of how this is likely to resolve within a year, and perhaps sooner. We trust God for the road ahead, confident of his leading. It is a walk of faith, like that of Abraham. If there is a difficult cost, we ask God to give us the heart to bear it with joy, and with trust in him. We remember that Jesus‟ most oft repeated command was, “Fear
not…”
What is our Heart?
We have not wanted to act in haste, as our congregational life over the past 40 years attests. We are concerned that the history of the Church is littered with the wreckage of strife and division. We do not wish to add to these ruins. We are mindful as well that our own hands are not clean in the development of this history, and are particularly brokenhearted over the pride that has too often accompanied our witness. We beg God and others across our Church for the forgiveness we need. So we wish to carry our convictions with grace and humility, not with judgment. We know that
God is concerned to correct things in us as well as in others. We are eager for that correction. We want to speak with clarity and charity towards those we oppose.
We are mindful of the wisdom of Gamaliel (Acts 5.38-40), who in a season of persecution persuaded the religious authorities to release the Apostle‟s with these words: “Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” His speech persuaded them. I think, in the end, this is what we will need to do: to carry ourselves with „clarity and charity‟, and to trust one another to God, confident that in due time he will sort it out. More than anything we wish to see God‟s Gospel future for our Church. Towards that future, we now move, asking your partnership, your prayer, and your support.
Geoffrey W Chapman, Rector Fred Dale, Senior Warden Michael Mullin, Junior Warden
With the unanimous support of the Vestry
One Family
From The Living Church:
10/28/2007
There seems to be little question that the Anglican Communion is going through an unprecedented major realignment at this time. Most leaders and commentators across the spectrum of conviction agree that this is the case. Indeed, the realignment has been in process for years.
Some reflect and publish in a considered and biblical manner, and make their case logically and humbly. Others do so with varying degrees of arrogance, stridency, fear, discouragement, lack of charity or ignorance. What the realignment will look like when it has been achieved is a matter of guesswork, and the settlement will probably take years to emerge.
The Anglican Communion consists of 38 independent provinces throughout the world, with about 75 or 80 million members. Overall the Communion is healthy and robust. The strength of the Anglican Communion is in the Third World, mostly in Africa, if one may measure by vibrancy of faith in the pew, number of converts, and strength of commitment to commonly understood biblical orthodoxy. Almost 25 percent of the Anglican Communion is found in Nigeria alone. African Anglicanism is strongly evangelical in preference. Western Anglicanism appears to be in decline. Membership and attendance in The Episcopal Church, for example, have declined a little each year for about 40 years.
The Anglican Communion came into existence almost at random. Its greatest period of expansion was in the latter half of the 19th century with the spread of the British Empire. There was no intention at that time to “centralize” the Anglican Communion or to come up with a way to make decisions on a worldwide basis. There was no need to do so. Anglicans generally have considered the independence of the provinces and a decentralized form of governing to be a strength. It has often been noted that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a “first among equals” and has no juridical authority outside his own diocese.
For the past generation or more, however, a few provinces in Anglicanism have made unilateral decisions that have had a serious negative effect on the rest of the Communion. These decisions, made mostly by The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, and the responses to these decisions from other parts of the Anglican world have brought the Anglican Communion to a crisis.
It is clear that the Anglican world has come to a point where it cannot and will not function as it did in the past. Whatever it comes to look like, the future Anglican Communion will be markedly different from what it has been.
At the risk of putting it too simply, it seems to me that there are now two views about the way Anglicans should do business. One view says that in the modern world, Anglicans need to realize that they are in fact a world community addressing world issues, and that the provinces are interdependent — not should be interdependent, but already are. Major issues that confront any given province will likely affect all the other provinces. Therefore a way must be found to define Anglicanism as a world community with a decision-making process at the world level. That means that we must “centralize” the way we make decisions in the areas that affect the whole Anglican world.
The other view asserts that that is not the way Anglicans have ever made decisions, and actually goes against one of the strengths and boasts of Anglicanism: a decentralized form of government with provincial independence. This claim is certainly accurate — historically, at least. The question is whether this way of doing business meets our current
needs.
In my opinion, the old way is clearly inadequate. Even apart from the issues that have created the crisis, to try to maintain the old way of doing things is backward thinking — basically merely saying “But we’ve never done it that way before.” It is doing business this way that has brought the Anglican Communion to its current crisis. It doesn’t work any more. It hasn’t worked for more than 30 years. I find it more than curious that most of those who claim to be “pushing the envelope forward” in the Anglican world are the “backward thinkers” in the matter of Anglican decision-making.
The first view, proposed by the majority of Anglican leaders, is indeed a way new to Anglicanism. This does not make it automatically wrong. On the contrary, in my opinion it is wise, realistic, and essential. The realignment is moving in the direction of this view — creating a worldwide Anglican identity with mutual accountability and effectively recognizing that Anglicanism has become a world family and is no longer a loose confederation.
There are currently four instruments of unity in Anglicanism that define us as a world family: the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the symbol of unity and has authority to decide who is an Anglican; the Lambeth Conference of all Anglican bishops, which began in 1867 and meets every 10 years to take counsel; the Anglican Consultative Council, a deliberative body that includes clergy and lay people from around the world [TLC, Sept. 16]; and the meeting of primates, or bishops who are leaders of the 38 Anglican provinces. The latter two instruments came into being as recently as the 1970s.
Currently an Anglican Covenant is being devised by which it appears that the provinces will be asked to agree to be a worldwide family with mutual accountability and, when necessary, make binding decisions together on matters that affect everyone. It is a situation similar to the time after the original 13 American colonies had become independent from England and then had to decide whether to form a federal government. It is a rare situation in world history, and people do not easily or gladly cede authority to a larger body.
From where I sit, it looks as though a lot of Anglican provinces see this trend as the answer to a crying need. Whatever lies ahead, Anglicanism is in the throes of change and cannot go back.❏
The Rev. Canon David M. Baumann, SSC, is the rector of Blessed Sacrament Church, Placentia, Calif.
10/28/2007
There seems to be little question that the Anglican Communion is going through an unprecedented major realignment at this time. Most leaders and commentators across the spectrum of conviction agree that this is the case. Indeed, the realignment has been in process for years.
Some reflect and publish in a considered and biblical manner, and make their case logically and humbly. Others do so with varying degrees of arrogance, stridency, fear, discouragement, lack of charity or ignorance. What the realignment will look like when it has been achieved is a matter of guesswork, and the settlement will probably take years to emerge.
The Anglican Communion consists of 38 independent provinces throughout the world, with about 75 or 80 million members. Overall the Communion is healthy and robust. The strength of the Anglican Communion is in the Third World, mostly in Africa, if one may measure by vibrancy of faith in the pew, number of converts, and strength of commitment to commonly understood biblical orthodoxy. Almost 25 percent of the Anglican Communion is found in Nigeria alone. African Anglicanism is strongly evangelical in preference. Western Anglicanism appears to be in decline. Membership and attendance in The Episcopal Church, for example, have declined a little each year for about 40 years.
The Anglican Communion came into existence almost at random. Its greatest period of expansion was in the latter half of the 19th century with the spread of the British Empire. There was no intention at that time to “centralize” the Anglican Communion or to come up with a way to make decisions on a worldwide basis. There was no need to do so. Anglicans generally have considered the independence of the provinces and a decentralized form of governing to be a strength. It has often been noted that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a “first among equals” and has no juridical authority outside his own diocese.
For the past generation or more, however, a few provinces in Anglicanism have made unilateral decisions that have had a serious negative effect on the rest of the Communion. These decisions, made mostly by The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, and the responses to these decisions from other parts of the Anglican world have brought the Anglican Communion to a crisis.
It is clear that the Anglican world has come to a point where it cannot and will not function as it did in the past. Whatever it comes to look like, the future Anglican Communion will be markedly different from what it has been.
At the risk of putting it too simply, it seems to me that there are now two views about the way Anglicans should do business. One view says that in the modern world, Anglicans need to realize that they are in fact a world community addressing world issues, and that the provinces are interdependent — not should be interdependent, but already are. Major issues that confront any given province will likely affect all the other provinces. Therefore a way must be found to define Anglicanism as a world community with a decision-making process at the world level. That means that we must “centralize” the way we make decisions in the areas that affect the whole Anglican world.
The other view asserts that that is not the way Anglicans have ever made decisions, and actually goes against one of the strengths and boasts of Anglicanism: a decentralized form of government with provincial independence. This claim is certainly accurate — historically, at least. The question is whether this way of doing business meets our current
needs.
In my opinion, the old way is clearly inadequate. Even apart from the issues that have created the crisis, to try to maintain the old way of doing things is backward thinking — basically merely saying “But we’ve never done it that way before.” It is doing business this way that has brought the Anglican Communion to its current crisis. It doesn’t work any more. It hasn’t worked for more than 30 years. I find it more than curious that most of those who claim to be “pushing the envelope forward” in the Anglican world are the “backward thinkers” in the matter of Anglican decision-making.
The first view, proposed by the majority of Anglican leaders, is indeed a way new to Anglicanism. This does not make it automatically wrong. On the contrary, in my opinion it is wise, realistic, and essential. The realignment is moving in the direction of this view — creating a worldwide Anglican identity with mutual accountability and effectively recognizing that Anglicanism has become a world family and is no longer a loose confederation.
There are currently four instruments of unity in Anglicanism that define us as a world family: the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the symbol of unity and has authority to decide who is an Anglican; the Lambeth Conference of all Anglican bishops, which began in 1867 and meets every 10 years to take counsel; the Anglican Consultative Council, a deliberative body that includes clergy and lay people from around the world [TLC, Sept. 16]; and the meeting of primates, or bishops who are leaders of the 38 Anglican provinces. The latter two instruments came into being as recently as the 1970s.
Currently an Anglican Covenant is being devised by which it appears that the provinces will be asked to agree to be a worldwide family with mutual accountability and, when necessary, make binding decisions together on matters that affect everyone. It is a situation similar to the time after the original 13 American colonies had become independent from England and then had to decide whether to form a federal government. It is a rare situation in world history, and people do not easily or gladly cede authority to a larger body.
From where I sit, it looks as though a lot of Anglican provinces see this trend as the answer to a crying need. Whatever lies ahead, Anglicanism is in the throes of change and cannot go back.❏
The Rev. Canon David M. Baumann, SSC, is the rector of Blessed Sacrament Church, Placentia, Calif.
Clark West: A Proposal for the Anglican Communion: Getting a divorce AND staying at the table
From resignatio ad infernum (blog):
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Recently, in response to a post on the website of Canon Kendall Harmon, canon theologian to the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, and a leading voice against the ordination of gays and lesbians and blessings of same-sex couples, I wrote the following words:
"...as Canon Kendall has rightly pointed out in his comments on Bishop Robinson’s recent open letter following the New Orleans meeting of the house of bishops, many, including Bishop Robinson, are beginning to question the legitimacy of such a distinction between public and private. I myself share Bishop Robinson’s rejection of that distinction, and agree with him that it is unsustainable theologically and ecclesiologically.
To that extent, I would agree with both Gene and Kendall, who, as odd as it may sound, actually seem to agree that a forward movement for all of us will involve more boldness on the part of ECUSA bishops and dioceses in affirming openly public rites of blessing for gay, lesbian, and transgendered persons. That this will put us on a path of separation from the Anglican Communion (I’m tempted to call it a divorce, a word which as an Anglican, and not a Roman Catholic, I do not fear, but can see as having its own blessings and grace) is a consequence I think we need to accept.
Should such openness mean that ECUSA is not invited to Lambeth and is ‘disciplined’ as my friend Ephraim Radner has said, I for one would look forward to such discipline without shame or fear, and would walk boldly with Bishop Gene and others who will not shrink back from the decisions we have made toward full inclusion.
Honesty requires that we affirm publically what we believe in our hearts privately and what we have acted upon in good faith. That is the very essence of integrity, and it is high time the rest of ECUSA take the lead from folks like Bishop Robinson, and our brothers and sisters in Integrity and step out of the numerous closets that are binding us. I for one would like to celebrate in the church with open joy the many public covenants of my gay and lesbian friends without fear of recrimination.
I should be clear that this is, of course, simply my opinion, not that of the diocese of Rochester, its bishop, nor anyone else in an official position. I share it with gratitude to Kendall for his recent words regarding Bishop Gene’s recent “Open Letter to the LGBT Community from Bishop Gene Robinson”, which I will quote for those who did not see them. Canon Harmon wrote about Bishop Robinson’s letter: “I applaud this truthful witness, and what I believe to be an accurate explanation that the bishops were misunderstood. Why can’t we have more people in this church who are willing to tell the truth?--KSH.”
Though I know Kendall’s position is diametrically opposed to Bishop Robinson’s, it is to his credit that he sees that the way forward for all of us, re-appraiser and re-asserter alike, relies on a willingness to stand by our actions with conviction and honesty, and not by trying to satisfy all by political church-craft, which ultimately satisfies no one and is further weakening the ties that will hopefully remain after a blessed ‘divorce’ takes place.
Of course there will be the complicated issues of the terms of separation (property, etc.), but first both sides must admit that due to their own sense of calling, the ‘marriage’ is no longer life-sustaining on either side. I for one am ready to admit this to be the case, and my gut tells me that I may not be alone. I pray that honesty and boldness may lead us all into a new birth, where we may no longer be as intimate as we once were, but will be able to once again see each other as beloved children of Christ, regardless of our divisions.
Your brother in Christ,
Clark West
Priest Canonically resident in the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester
Geneva, N.Y."
Let me add a few more words of explanation of what I mean in this letter. Divorce, as those who have gone through it can attest, indeed can be hell. But so too can a marriage that is lived on the basis of a lie, fear, coercion, violence or threats of violence, etc. Divorce, as Anglican theologians have come to see, may allow integrity to return to a relationship that has become soured or even impossible due to deceptions and coercions named and unnamed.
Often we think of divorce as final, as a separation, as a failure of a relationship and its final ending. And yet, according to the canons of The Episcopal Church, a priest who solemnizes any marriage where one or both of the parties has previously been married and is now divorced is required to do the following:
"The Member of the Clergy shall have instructed the parties that continuing concern must be shown for the well-being
of the former spouse, and of any children of the prior marriage."
Anglicans, therefore, do not believe that divorce is ultimate separation, nor that it means ‘leaving the table’ forever. And as I have experienced it as a parish priest, and as I have had others attest, divorce, when done with integrity, solemnity, and a spirit of forgiveness, can in some cases lead to a new relationship between the divorced parties—not the intimate relationship of marriage, but nevertheless a relationship marked by a new graced spirit of love, understanding, and mutual concern for one another and the family that has been brought into being.
This is what I mean when I argue that I think it is time for a ‘divorce’ in the Anglican Communion between those who are committed to full inclusion for gays, lesbians, and transgendered persons, and those who are committed to the current position on marriage as it is outlined in the Book of Common Prayer and the canons of the church. Such a divorce, which is now being argued for on both sides of the issue, interestingly, need not, does not, I would say, mean that either side desires to ‘walk apart’ or ‘leave the table’ of fellowship. It does mean a new reality, one that will take some getting used to, as any who have been through divorce can speak to as well.
The image of the table around which we gather is for Anglicans, of course, the Eucharistic table. At the church I am currently serving, there is a reproduction of Da Vinci’s famous painting of the Last Supper. I am struck by a number of things as I look at it. Of course there is the reality that Judas, whom Jesus clearly knows will betray him, is nevertheless at the table. Radical hospitality is the core of our Eucharistic vision. Secondly, there is the vibrant sense of movement, even jostling, among the twelve disciples. Whispering, leaning this way and that, I can imagine that over the course of the meal, as over the course of the journey with Jesus to the site of his crucifixion, there were fights, passionate theological disagreements, intimacies gained and lost. Perhaps the two disciples now seated at opposite ends of the table were once side by side, but found that for the good of the whole, they needed a blessed measure of separation (blessed for everyone else, who undoubtedly will have become tired of their violent bickering!). In that scenario, which admittedly is my own ‘midrash’ on a painting, not the scripture itself, Jesus becomes a figure both for unity and blessed, healthy distance between two of his brothers in the faith who can unite around his mission, but not their own ideas of its implications.
Such is the image of the disciples around the table at which Jesus sits dispensing forgiveness, love, and his very body and blood of solidarity with us which I see when I look at the gospels, and Da Vinci’s brilliant portrayal of it. Would a divorce between the majority of the Anglican world and the Episcopal Church USA and its allies rend this image? My own view is that it would not. Rather, such a separation might well be the very means for us to stay at the table, united by prayers, mutual support, financial, spiritual, political and otherwise. Such a jostling of chairs around the table will clearly take some time to sort out, and we may find ourselves bumping elbows and knees in the process. But I am convinced that both parties, in this case, long for such relationship, because we sense that Christ is indeed in our midst, and that a ‘final solution’ to our strife will come not by our own war-like efforts to achieve victory and banish those we see ‘betraying’ like Judas, the faith handed on to us by the twelve. We may, like Judas, refuse the impurity of this table fellowship, and in a ferocious, maniacal attempt to purify ourselves of our own secret sins, real and imagined, commit acts of treachery and self-murder. This is, I am afraid, always a real possibility as long as we are free creatures, as we are promised we are.
But as I look at one of my favorite icons of Christ, with one eye burning through our illusions about our own attempts at purity, and the other embracing us mercifully with a forgiving, gentle love which we do not and cannot ever earn, my faith returns that no matter what happens to our beloved church, our historic Anglican Communion, God is faithful, Jesus is with us, the Spirit is, as ever, true and leading us to blessings for which we have not yet even imagined.
Your brother with a spark of hope,
Clark+
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Recently, in response to a post on the website of Canon Kendall Harmon, canon theologian to the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, and a leading voice against the ordination of gays and lesbians and blessings of same-sex couples, I wrote the following words:
"...as Canon Kendall has rightly pointed out in his comments on Bishop Robinson’s recent open letter following the New Orleans meeting of the house of bishops, many, including Bishop Robinson, are beginning to question the legitimacy of such a distinction between public and private. I myself share Bishop Robinson’s rejection of that distinction, and agree with him that it is unsustainable theologically and ecclesiologically.
To that extent, I would agree with both Gene and Kendall, who, as odd as it may sound, actually seem to agree that a forward movement for all of us will involve more boldness on the part of ECUSA bishops and dioceses in affirming openly public rites of blessing for gay, lesbian, and transgendered persons. That this will put us on a path of separation from the Anglican Communion (I’m tempted to call it a divorce, a word which as an Anglican, and not a Roman Catholic, I do not fear, but can see as having its own blessings and grace) is a consequence I think we need to accept.
Should such openness mean that ECUSA is not invited to Lambeth and is ‘disciplined’ as my friend Ephraim Radner has said, I for one would look forward to such discipline without shame or fear, and would walk boldly with Bishop Gene and others who will not shrink back from the decisions we have made toward full inclusion.
Honesty requires that we affirm publically what we believe in our hearts privately and what we have acted upon in good faith. That is the very essence of integrity, and it is high time the rest of ECUSA take the lead from folks like Bishop Robinson, and our brothers and sisters in Integrity and step out of the numerous closets that are binding us. I for one would like to celebrate in the church with open joy the many public covenants of my gay and lesbian friends without fear of recrimination.
I should be clear that this is, of course, simply my opinion, not that of the diocese of Rochester, its bishop, nor anyone else in an official position. I share it with gratitude to Kendall for his recent words regarding Bishop Gene’s recent “Open Letter to the LGBT Community from Bishop Gene Robinson”, which I will quote for those who did not see them. Canon Harmon wrote about Bishop Robinson’s letter: “I applaud this truthful witness, and what I believe to be an accurate explanation that the bishops were misunderstood. Why can’t we have more people in this church who are willing to tell the truth?--KSH.”
Though I know Kendall’s position is diametrically opposed to Bishop Robinson’s, it is to his credit that he sees that the way forward for all of us, re-appraiser and re-asserter alike, relies on a willingness to stand by our actions with conviction and honesty, and not by trying to satisfy all by political church-craft, which ultimately satisfies no one and is further weakening the ties that will hopefully remain after a blessed ‘divorce’ takes place.
Of course there will be the complicated issues of the terms of separation (property, etc.), but first both sides must admit that due to their own sense of calling, the ‘marriage’ is no longer life-sustaining on either side. I for one am ready to admit this to be the case, and my gut tells me that I may not be alone. I pray that honesty and boldness may lead us all into a new birth, where we may no longer be as intimate as we once were, but will be able to once again see each other as beloved children of Christ, regardless of our divisions.
Your brother in Christ,
Clark West
Priest Canonically resident in the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester
Geneva, N.Y."
Let me add a few more words of explanation of what I mean in this letter. Divorce, as those who have gone through it can attest, indeed can be hell. But so too can a marriage that is lived on the basis of a lie, fear, coercion, violence or threats of violence, etc. Divorce, as Anglican theologians have come to see, may allow integrity to return to a relationship that has become soured or even impossible due to deceptions and coercions named and unnamed.
Often we think of divorce as final, as a separation, as a failure of a relationship and its final ending. And yet, according to the canons of The Episcopal Church, a priest who solemnizes any marriage where one or both of the parties has previously been married and is now divorced is required to do the following:
"The Member of the Clergy shall have instructed the parties that continuing concern must be shown for the well-being
of the former spouse, and of any children of the prior marriage."
Anglicans, therefore, do not believe that divorce is ultimate separation, nor that it means ‘leaving the table’ forever. And as I have experienced it as a parish priest, and as I have had others attest, divorce, when done with integrity, solemnity, and a spirit of forgiveness, can in some cases lead to a new relationship between the divorced parties—not the intimate relationship of marriage, but nevertheless a relationship marked by a new graced spirit of love, understanding, and mutual concern for one another and the family that has been brought into being.
This is what I mean when I argue that I think it is time for a ‘divorce’ in the Anglican Communion between those who are committed to full inclusion for gays, lesbians, and transgendered persons, and those who are committed to the current position on marriage as it is outlined in the Book of Common Prayer and the canons of the church. Such a divorce, which is now being argued for on both sides of the issue, interestingly, need not, does not, I would say, mean that either side desires to ‘walk apart’ or ‘leave the table’ of fellowship. It does mean a new reality, one that will take some getting used to, as any who have been through divorce can speak to as well.
The image of the table around which we gather is for Anglicans, of course, the Eucharistic table. At the church I am currently serving, there is a reproduction of Da Vinci’s famous painting of the Last Supper. I am struck by a number of things as I look at it. Of course there is the reality that Judas, whom Jesus clearly knows will betray him, is nevertheless at the table. Radical hospitality is the core of our Eucharistic vision. Secondly, there is the vibrant sense of movement, even jostling, among the twelve disciples. Whispering, leaning this way and that, I can imagine that over the course of the meal, as over the course of the journey with Jesus to the site of his crucifixion, there were fights, passionate theological disagreements, intimacies gained and lost. Perhaps the two disciples now seated at opposite ends of the table were once side by side, but found that for the good of the whole, they needed a blessed measure of separation (blessed for everyone else, who undoubtedly will have become tired of their violent bickering!). In that scenario, which admittedly is my own ‘midrash’ on a painting, not the scripture itself, Jesus becomes a figure both for unity and blessed, healthy distance between two of his brothers in the faith who can unite around his mission, but not their own ideas of its implications.
Such is the image of the disciples around the table at which Jesus sits dispensing forgiveness, love, and his very body and blood of solidarity with us which I see when I look at the gospels, and Da Vinci’s brilliant portrayal of it. Would a divorce between the majority of the Anglican world and the Episcopal Church USA and its allies rend this image? My own view is that it would not. Rather, such a separation might well be the very means for us to stay at the table, united by prayers, mutual support, financial, spiritual, political and otherwise. Such a jostling of chairs around the table will clearly take some time to sort out, and we may find ourselves bumping elbows and knees in the process. But I am convinced that both parties, in this case, long for such relationship, because we sense that Christ is indeed in our midst, and that a ‘final solution’ to our strife will come not by our own war-like efforts to achieve victory and banish those we see ‘betraying’ like Judas, the faith handed on to us by the twelve. We may, like Judas, refuse the impurity of this table fellowship, and in a ferocious, maniacal attempt to purify ourselves of our own secret sins, real and imagined, commit acts of treachery and self-murder. This is, I am afraid, always a real possibility as long as we are free creatures, as we are promised we are.
But as I look at one of my favorite icons of Christ, with one eye burning through our illusions about our own attempts at purity, and the other embracing us mercifully with a forgiving, gentle love which we do not and cannot ever earn, my faith returns that no matter what happens to our beloved church, our historic Anglican Communion, God is faithful, Jesus is with us, the Spirit is, as ever, true and leading us to blessings for which we have not yet even imagined.
Your brother with a spark of hope,
Clark+
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Rebuff for US Bishops
The leading evangelical umbrella group in the Church of England has given the thumbs down to the recent statement from the US House of Bishops, and they have invited English dioceses to consider boycotting next year’s Lambeth Conference.
The Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) emphasised that they are committed both to the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. However they judged that the recent statement from the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans fell short of the demands made on it by the Primates.
In a statement they said: “We believe TEC’s response does not meet the requests of the Primates from Dar es Salaam, not merely for clarification but for repentance and turning back from their clear intention to affirm same-sex blessings and the consecration of practicing homosexuals to the episcopate.”
They said that the American bishops had ‘continued to widen a gap of their own making’. As a result the fabric of the Communion is torn ‘almost beyond repair’.
While they supported the proposed Anglican Covenant, they said that the reaction from the American bishops showed that ‘this covenant may not hold’. And they went further. The contents of their statement showed, they claimed, that the US Church ‘has placed itself outside the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the Catholic Creeds’.
In an appeal to English dioceses, they said that those dioceses that are linked with dioceses overseas should consult with their companion dioceses about whether to attend the Lambeth Conference.
A number of dioceses, largely in Africa, have said that they may not attend the 10-yearly meeting of the Anglican bishops. And last week the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali (pictured) revealed that if current arrangements stand, he might not be able to attend himself.
Sources have told The Church of England Newspaper that representatives from almost all the African Provinces have responded positively to their invitations to Lambeth, with the one exception being Uganda.
In their statement the CEEC said: “We prayerfully counsel Church of England bishops to consider whether in the light of TEC’s response they may wish to absent themselves.”
They added that the inclusive Gospel preached by Jesus was based on repentance, faith and the gift of the Spirit. “In effect TEC’s approach to inclusiveness excludes the majority of Anglicans from other provinces who are faithful to Biblical teaching. We affirm as the will of God the biblical teaching that we are called either to heterosexual marriage or celibacy.”
Church of England Newspaper daily edition, 10/15/07
The Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) emphasised that they are committed both to the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. However they judged that the recent statement from the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans fell short of the demands made on it by the Primates.
In a statement they said: “We believe TEC’s response does not meet the requests of the Primates from Dar es Salaam, not merely for clarification but for repentance and turning back from their clear intention to affirm same-sex blessings and the consecration of practicing homosexuals to the episcopate.”
They said that the American bishops had ‘continued to widen a gap of their own making’. As a result the fabric of the Communion is torn ‘almost beyond repair’.
While they supported the proposed Anglican Covenant, they said that the reaction from the American bishops showed that ‘this covenant may not hold’. And they went further. The contents of their statement showed, they claimed, that the US Church ‘has placed itself outside the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the Catholic Creeds’.
In an appeal to English dioceses, they said that those dioceses that are linked with dioceses overseas should consult with their companion dioceses about whether to attend the Lambeth Conference.
A number of dioceses, largely in Africa, have said that they may not attend the 10-yearly meeting of the Anglican bishops. And last week the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali (pictured) revealed that if current arrangements stand, he might not be able to attend himself.
Sources have told The Church of England Newspaper that representatives from almost all the African Provinces have responded positively to their invitations to Lambeth, with the one exception being Uganda.
In their statement the CEEC said: “We prayerfully counsel Church of England bishops to consider whether in the light of TEC’s response they may wish to absent themselves.”
They added that the inclusive Gospel preached by Jesus was based on repentance, faith and the gift of the Spirit. “In effect TEC’s approach to inclusiveness excludes the majority of Anglicans from other provinces who are faithful to Biblical teaching. We affirm as the will of God the biblical teaching that we are called either to heterosexual marriage or celibacy.”
Church of England Newspaper daily edition, 10/15/07
Monday, October 15, 2007
Episcopalians now face a reunited opposition
OrlandoSentinel.com
OTHER VIEWS
De-Balkanizing the Anglican traditionalists
David C. Steinmetz
Special to the Sentinel
October 14, 2007
Anglicans don't do schism well. Schism is a split in the structure of the church and Anglicans (also known in this country as Episcopalians) do it badly.
Which is surprising, considering that Anglicans are famous for doing things well, or at least doing them with an enviable sense of style. But when it comes to schism (arguably America's favorite indoor ecclesiastical sport), most Anglicans are embarrassingly clumsy.
They are, for one thing, prone to splinter. Rather than rally around a single standard and build a viable group of dissenters who can survive and prosper, Anglicans have preferred to split into several tiny, non-viable groups that are barely visible and hardly missed.
Until recently, fragmentation seemed to be the strategy du jour of traditionalists in the current Anglican crisis. This crisis was precipitated by the decision of the Episcopal Church to consecrate a divorced non-celibate gay man as the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire and to allow the blessing of same-sex unions. A minority of Episcopalians in the U.S. and a majority of Anglicans worldwide disagreed strongly with this decision and set about to scupper it.
Offshore Anglican archbishops, mainly in Africa, came to the rescue of American traditionalists by offering membership in their own traditionalist provinces. It seemed like an almost perfect solution for American conservatives. Africans provided them with new missionary bishops to oversee their congregations in the United States, while providing a way for former Episcopalians to remain (more or less) in unbroken communion with the archbishop of Canterbury.
But therein lies the rub. The problem was not that American traditionalists lacked friends overseas but rather that they seemed to have far too many of them, including sympathetic archbishops from Bolivia and Singapore. By August, conservatives could choose between missionary bishops from Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya -- and many of them did. Once again an Anglican dissenting group seemed headed toward fragmentation and diminished influence.
That is, until Sept. 27-28, when Anglican conservatives made a move toward greater unity among themselves. Bishops and bishops-elect from the Episcopal Church, the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Anglican Mission in America, the Anglican Province of America, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, the Anglican Network in Canada, as well as missionary bishops from Uganda and Kenya met in Pittsburgh as a Common Cause College of Bishops.
According to a joint statement, the bishops "repented" of the divisions that had existed among them and vowed to meet every six months as a continuing College of Bishops. Their primary agenda was to unite as soon as possible the divided Anglican groups of which they were representatives into one undivided church. Toward that end the participating bishops agreed to share clergy across the lines that still separated them.
Among the supporters in principle of this agreement were several dissenting bishops of the Episcopal Church, who proposed to bring their dioceses with them, including (one assumes) titles to church property. The dioceses present were Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, Quincy, Western Kansas, Springfield and Albany.
If successful, the new Anglican Church would have more than 600 congregations, a large enough constituency to be viable. It would also enjoy the backing of most of the archbishops from the Southern Hemisphere, who oversee the fastest-growing area in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion.
On the other hand, success is not automatically guaranteed and good intentions, however laudable, are not accomplished deeds. To begin with, the Episcopal Church is unlikely to allow several of its dioceses to secede lock, stock, and thurible without contesting property rights, the outcome of which is uncertain.
Moreover, there are continuing disagreements among conservatives, especially over the question of whether women should be ordained. While the Common Cause bishops promised to respect their differences on this issue, it is difficult to see how some decsions can be postponed forever -- unless the new church is merely a confederation of two churches under one banner.
Still, there is no reason to predict failure. There has, for example, been a small but steady stream of evangelicals into Anglican churches in recent years (especially into evangelical parishes). They were drawn by the beauty of the liturgy, the pervasive sense of historical roots that evangelical churches often lack, a deep commitment to a thinking faith, and the satisfying conviction that they were members of a genuinely catholic as well as a lively evangelical church.
It was a winning combination in the past. No reason to think it could not be in the future.
David C. Steinmetz is the Amos Ragan Kearns Professor of the History of Christianity at The Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, N.C. He wrote this commentary for the Orlando Sentinel.
OTHER VIEWS
De-Balkanizing the Anglican traditionalists
David C. Steinmetz
Special to the Sentinel
October 14, 2007
Anglicans don't do schism well. Schism is a split in the structure of the church and Anglicans (also known in this country as Episcopalians) do it badly.
Which is surprising, considering that Anglicans are famous for doing things well, or at least doing them with an enviable sense of style. But when it comes to schism (arguably America's favorite indoor ecclesiastical sport), most Anglicans are embarrassingly clumsy.
They are, for one thing, prone to splinter. Rather than rally around a single standard and build a viable group of dissenters who can survive and prosper, Anglicans have preferred to split into several tiny, non-viable groups that are barely visible and hardly missed.
Until recently, fragmentation seemed to be the strategy du jour of traditionalists in the current Anglican crisis. This crisis was precipitated by the decision of the Episcopal Church to consecrate a divorced non-celibate gay man as the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire and to allow the blessing of same-sex unions. A minority of Episcopalians in the U.S. and a majority of Anglicans worldwide disagreed strongly with this decision and set about to scupper it.
Offshore Anglican archbishops, mainly in Africa, came to the rescue of American traditionalists by offering membership in their own traditionalist provinces. It seemed like an almost perfect solution for American conservatives. Africans provided them with new missionary bishops to oversee their congregations in the United States, while providing a way for former Episcopalians to remain (more or less) in unbroken communion with the archbishop of Canterbury.
But therein lies the rub. The problem was not that American traditionalists lacked friends overseas but rather that they seemed to have far too many of them, including sympathetic archbishops from Bolivia and Singapore. By August, conservatives could choose between missionary bishops from Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya -- and many of them did. Once again an Anglican dissenting group seemed headed toward fragmentation and diminished influence.
That is, until Sept. 27-28, when Anglican conservatives made a move toward greater unity among themselves. Bishops and bishops-elect from the Episcopal Church, the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Anglican Mission in America, the Anglican Province of America, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, the Anglican Network in Canada, as well as missionary bishops from Uganda and Kenya met in Pittsburgh as a Common Cause College of Bishops.
According to a joint statement, the bishops "repented" of the divisions that had existed among them and vowed to meet every six months as a continuing College of Bishops. Their primary agenda was to unite as soon as possible the divided Anglican groups of which they were representatives into one undivided church. Toward that end the participating bishops agreed to share clergy across the lines that still separated them.
Among the supporters in principle of this agreement were several dissenting bishops of the Episcopal Church, who proposed to bring their dioceses with them, including (one assumes) titles to church property. The dioceses present were Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, Quincy, Western Kansas, Springfield and Albany.
If successful, the new Anglican Church would have more than 600 congregations, a large enough constituency to be viable. It would also enjoy the backing of most of the archbishops from the Southern Hemisphere, who oversee the fastest-growing area in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion.
On the other hand, success is not automatically guaranteed and good intentions, however laudable, are not accomplished deeds. To begin with, the Episcopal Church is unlikely to allow several of its dioceses to secede lock, stock, and thurible without contesting property rights, the outcome of which is uncertain.
Moreover, there are continuing disagreements among conservatives, especially over the question of whether women should be ordained. While the Common Cause bishops promised to respect their differences on this issue, it is difficult to see how some decsions can be postponed forever -- unless the new church is merely a confederation of two churches under one banner.
Still, there is no reason to predict failure. There has, for example, been a small but steady stream of evangelicals into Anglican churches in recent years (especially into evangelical parishes). They were drawn by the beauty of the liturgy, the pervasive sense of historical roots that evangelical churches often lack, a deep commitment to a thinking faith, and the satisfying conviction that they were members of a genuinely catholic as well as a lively evangelical church.
It was a winning combination in the past. No reason to think it could not be in the future.
David C. Steinmetz is the Amos Ragan Kearns Professor of the History of Christianity at The Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, N.C. He wrote this commentary for the Orlando Sentinel.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Rebuff for Episcopal Green Light
This article appears on page 8 of today's edition of the Church of England Newspaper.
Posted by Kendall Harmon to TitusOneNine.
By George Conger
THE NEW Orleans statement of the US House of Bishops has ‘clarified all outstanding questions’ posed by the Primates to the American Church, a report prepared by the Primates/ACC Joint Standing Committee (JSC) has found.
However, the 19-page report has been dismissed as dishonest by US conservatives, and its conclusions rejected by the African churches. Observers note the clumsy attempt of the JSC to usurp the prerogatives of the Primates, and to become a de facto fifth ‘instrument of unity,’ has served to worsen the already bitter climate within the Communion.
The Primates had asked the US Church to clarify the statement of its 2006 General Convention that it would not permit the election of more gay bishops or authorise gay blessings, that an autonomous scheme for pastoral oversight be given to traditionalists, and that the lawsuits against breakaway conservative parishes would cease.
At their March meeting the US bishops invited Dr Williams and the members of the Primates Standing Committee to meet with them face-to-face to avert a blow up. Over the summer this invitation was enlarged by the ACC staff to include itself and the ACC standing committee. In New Orleans the US Bishops pledged ‘as a body’ to ‘exercise restraint’ in electing gay bishops, pledged not to authorise ‘public rites’ of same-sex blessings, and agreed to delegated pastoral oversight for traditionalists under the supervision of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. It declined to address the issue of lawsuits, and chastised Global South Primates for violating their jurisdictions in providing support for traditionalist congregations.
The JSC concluded that this response satisfied the Primates’ requests and added the US was correct in citing the ‘ancient councils of the Church’ in protesting border crossings. The Primates were hypocrites in demanding the US church refrain from implementing gay bishops and blessings while they permitted the border crossings to go on. “[W]e do not see how certain Primates can in good conscience call upon The Episcopal Church to meet the recommendations of the Windsor Report while they find reasons to exempt themselves from paying regard to them.
“We recommend that the Archbishop remind them of their own words and undertakings,” the report said.
Crafted in a late night session on Sept 24 by Bishop Jefferts Schori and the JSC, the statement was adopted with amendments by the bishops on Sept 25. Critics of the report charge it is disingenuous of the ACC to give an independent endorsement of a report that it helped write, and question the US Presiding Bishop’s role as defendant, judge and jury in the process.
Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda called the report ‘severely compromised, and the gross conflicts of interest it represents utterly undermine its credibility.’ He said the Primates did not envision the ACC inserting itself in the process while the US was ‘considering our requests. Yet, members of the [JSC] met with Presiding Bishop Schori in the course of the preparation of their House of Bishops’ statement in order to suggest certain words, which, if included in the statement, would assure endorsement by the [JSC].
‘Presiding Bishop Schori’s participation in the evaluation of the response requested of her province is a gross conflict of interest. We wonder why she did not recuse herself.’ Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt, a member of the JSC delegation in New Orleans repudiated the report saying the US had given an inadequate response. “Instead they used ambiguous language and contradicted themselves within their own response,” he said.
The African archbishops also questioned the integrity of the JSC report, stating last Friday that: “On first reading we find it to be unsatisfactory. The assurances made are without credibility and its preparation is severely compromised by numerous conflicts of interest. The report itself appears to be a determined effort to find a way for the full inclusion of The Episcopal Church with no attempt at discipline or change from their prior position.”
The JSC report will be forwarded to all of the members of the Anglican Consultative Council and the primates for consideration. Archbishop Rowan Williams has asked for
their responses by the end of October.
Posted by Kendall Harmon to TitusOneNine.
By George Conger
THE NEW Orleans statement of the US House of Bishops has ‘clarified all outstanding questions’ posed by the Primates to the American Church, a report prepared by the Primates/ACC Joint Standing Committee (JSC) has found.
However, the 19-page report has been dismissed as dishonest by US conservatives, and its conclusions rejected by the African churches. Observers note the clumsy attempt of the JSC to usurp the prerogatives of the Primates, and to become a de facto fifth ‘instrument of unity,’ has served to worsen the already bitter climate within the Communion.
The Primates had asked the US Church to clarify the statement of its 2006 General Convention that it would not permit the election of more gay bishops or authorise gay blessings, that an autonomous scheme for pastoral oversight be given to traditionalists, and that the lawsuits against breakaway conservative parishes would cease.
At their March meeting the US bishops invited Dr Williams and the members of the Primates Standing Committee to meet with them face-to-face to avert a blow up. Over the summer this invitation was enlarged by the ACC staff to include itself and the ACC standing committee. In New Orleans the US Bishops pledged ‘as a body’ to ‘exercise restraint’ in electing gay bishops, pledged not to authorise ‘public rites’ of same-sex blessings, and agreed to delegated pastoral oversight for traditionalists under the supervision of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. It declined to address the issue of lawsuits, and chastised Global South Primates for violating their jurisdictions in providing support for traditionalist congregations.
The JSC concluded that this response satisfied the Primates’ requests and added the US was correct in citing the ‘ancient councils of the Church’ in protesting border crossings. The Primates were hypocrites in demanding the US church refrain from implementing gay bishops and blessings while they permitted the border crossings to go on. “[W]e do not see how certain Primates can in good conscience call upon The Episcopal Church to meet the recommendations of the Windsor Report while they find reasons to exempt themselves from paying regard to them.
“We recommend that the Archbishop remind them of their own words and undertakings,” the report said.
Crafted in a late night session on Sept 24 by Bishop Jefferts Schori and the JSC, the statement was adopted with amendments by the bishops on Sept 25. Critics of the report charge it is disingenuous of the ACC to give an independent endorsement of a report that it helped write, and question the US Presiding Bishop’s role as defendant, judge and jury in the process.
Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda called the report ‘severely compromised, and the gross conflicts of interest it represents utterly undermine its credibility.’ He said the Primates did not envision the ACC inserting itself in the process while the US was ‘considering our requests. Yet, members of the [JSC] met with Presiding Bishop Schori in the course of the preparation of their House of Bishops’ statement in order to suggest certain words, which, if included in the statement, would assure endorsement by the [JSC].
‘Presiding Bishop Schori’s participation in the evaluation of the response requested of her province is a gross conflict of interest. We wonder why she did not recuse herself.’ Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt, a member of the JSC delegation in New Orleans repudiated the report saying the US had given an inadequate response. “Instead they used ambiguous language and contradicted themselves within their own response,” he said.
The African archbishops also questioned the integrity of the JSC report, stating last Friday that: “On first reading we find it to be unsatisfactory. The assurances made are without credibility and its preparation is severely compromised by numerous conflicts of interest. The report itself appears to be a determined effort to find a way for the full inclusion of The Episcopal Church with no attempt at discipline or change from their prior position.”
The JSC report will be forwarded to all of the members of the Anglican Consultative Council and the primates for consideration. Archbishop Rowan Williams has asked for
their responses by the end of October.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Andreas Westergren: “One Church?”
October 9, 2007
Christopher Wells of the Covenant blog (http://covenant-communion.com) gives the following introduction:
Following is the first contribution to Covenant by our (at the moment only) non-Anglican “featured author,” Andreas Westergren, who is a priest in the Lutheran Church of Sweden and a doctoral candidate in theology.
I am especially grateful for this gift as our brother writes in his non-native tongue (he is also married to a German, and I understand that he and his wife regularly converse in that language; and his doctoral work especially demands aptitude in Greek, with some use as well of Syriac and French: may many of us achieve such multi-linguistic heights!). It is a passionate reflection on “communion” in an ascetical and ecumenical key, and graciously engages the Anglican situation from an international perspective.
An excerpt:
It was interesting to see how the Swedish church, after the controversial decision to bless same-sex partnerships (not formal marriages), was criticised by fellow-members of the “Porvoo Agreement,” namely the Church of England and the Church of Finland, for not letting them be more involved in the discussion. Bilateral critique like this follows from the premise of mutual accountability! And unless our agreements take such a shape, they run the risk of being little more than small-talk.
From my point of view there is much at stake in the Anglican Communion’s attempts to reshape itself, since it stands at the crossroad of many traditions. If it manages to find a new form of its own communion, it might be able to act as mediator between different strands in the Church; if not, it will still bear consequences for the whole Church, albeit negative ones. The question, as I understand it, pertains not only to the decisions that will be made but also to how seriously the different churches will take the debate—and each other—throughout this time of decision-making; or, to return to my initial reflection: it is a question not only of articulating an appropriate compromise but of the readiness to find oneself—and Christ—through the encounter with the other.
One Church?
Losing Identity
A couple of years ago I was one of the initiators of a symposium on the identity of the Church of Sweden. I especially remember one of the professors standing up and saying: in a post-modern context, we are not so fond anymore of speaking about identity….
Following this interesting assertion, it seems that it could be developed in relation to the question of the future shape of the Anglican Communion. Because a focus on the preservation of one’s own identity may be an equally distinguishing trait for both the allegedly conservative and liberal, as both fear that the views of the other may be superimposed upon them (in this sense, both are literally “conservatives”!).
Of course, concern about identity can be appropriate and even necessary at times. Sometimes one’s identity has to be defended vehemently against intruders. The problem, however, arises when such defenses are taken as the rule rather than the exception. They betray a typically modern understanding of freedom as something that has to be defended, negotiated and compromised, because its preconception is the market or politics. It is my identity against yours, your freedom against mine in a game where all are competitors, intruding upon the freedom of the other, where common space only can be a place for a hermeneutics of suspicion (so that my rights are not overlooked).
As common as this kind of understanding of identity and freedom may be, it is not sufficient because it does not account for the more fundamental experience of freedom taking place precisely in the interaction with someone, that one’s identity only finds its fullest expression and potential in relating to something else. On a personal level, our identities are never set; they evolve through the circumstances and the people that we meet. Theologically speaking, my identity can never be just mine, since my existence is ultimately dependent on God and can therefore find its goal only in (relation to) Christ. In this sense my identity is a calling to leave myself, entrusting myself to God in daily repentance—ultimately, a preparation for death, when I will lose everything, dependent on the same grace that gave me life. In this way, we are called to follow the path of kenosis through which Christ opened the mystery of God’s trinitarian self-giving love to us (Phil. 2:5-11).
The Shape of the Church
As already hinted, it seems to me that these questions about identity also pertain to the different churches that we live in. And what I would emphasize is how the given shape of any church can support or make the encounter with the “other” hard. We are, I think, used to the long-standing critique of the hierarchical and legalized structure of the Roman Catholic Church that the early Protestant churches, such as my own, emphasized (perhaps rightly) at the time of the Reformation—searching for a new structure on the basis of the old which would focus more closely on the centre and less on that which is adiaphora (or non-essential). But sometimes we forget that all church structures have particular consequences, even for those who claim no structure.
The Swedish Church, for example, soon lost itself inside another structure, that of the state, in a self-centeredness out of which it has only slowly been able to emerge during the 20th century. And in a way it still struggles with the same problem; for despite the fact of not being the church of the state anymore, its structure is so closely built on that of the state that the political parties remain actively involved in church policy! Likewise, despite the fact that the Swedish church has engaged in ecumenical dialogue for almost a hundred years, initiating the process that would become the World Council of Churches, the question still lingers: how serious is this commitment—as long as other churches do not have a voice (or even a vote!) in the decisions made in the Council of the church? It was interesting to see how the Swedish church, after the controversial decision to bless same-sex partnerships (not formal marriages), was criticised by fellow-members of the “Porvoo Agreement,” namely the Church of England and the Church of Finland, for not letting them be more involved in the discussion. Bilateral critique like this follows from the premise of mutual accountability! And unless our agreements take such a shape, they run the risk of being little more than small-talk.
From my point of view there is much at stake in the Anglican Communion’s attempts to reshape itself, since it stands at the crossroad of many traditions. If it manages to find a new form of its own communion, it might be able to act as mediator between different strands in the Church; if not, it will still bear consequences for the whole Church, albeit negative ones. The question, as I understand it, pertains not only to the decisions that will be made but also to how seriously the different churches will take the debate—and each other—throughout this time of decision-making; or, to return to my initial reflection: it is a question not only of articulating an appropriate compromise but of the readiness to find oneself—and Christ—through the encounter with the other.
That is my prayer for the Anglican Communion: that it may find a shape in which the different churches are bound to each other and a form of mutual decision-making.
A critical potential
Some final words about the vision of the One Church: is it really a realistic goal? Often I think it is not, despite the fact that as a member of a community of prayer I have bound myself to beg for it daily. Sometimes I am even catch myself suspecting, in (post-) modern fashion, that the realized vision would necessarily entail some kind of oppression. So why do I keep praying? One way of looking at it that still makes sense to me is to see the critical potential of the prayer. Repeating the prayer of Jesus Christ himself, “that all may be one” (John 17:20), we are continually lead out of our own contexts and problems to the one God, and the manifold witnesses of all the others: never satisfied with just ourselves; always struggling to understand our brothers and sisters across the world (and throughout time), as we likewise try to make ourselves understood; letting their views achieve a critical correlation with our own.
Finding forms for such an encounter is certainly not adiaphora but essential for our living identity as a Church. Its beginning and its proper place is the Liturgy, where we offer ourselves to the One God, praying that his Spirit will renew us again into the one body of his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Christopher Wells of the Covenant blog (http://covenant-communion.com) gives the following introduction:
Following is the first contribution to Covenant by our (at the moment only) non-Anglican “featured author,” Andreas Westergren, who is a priest in the Lutheran Church of Sweden and a doctoral candidate in theology.
I am especially grateful for this gift as our brother writes in his non-native tongue (he is also married to a German, and I understand that he and his wife regularly converse in that language; and his doctoral work especially demands aptitude in Greek, with some use as well of Syriac and French: may many of us achieve such multi-linguistic heights!). It is a passionate reflection on “communion” in an ascetical and ecumenical key, and graciously engages the Anglican situation from an international perspective.
An excerpt:
It was interesting to see how the Swedish church, after the controversial decision to bless same-sex partnerships (not formal marriages), was criticised by fellow-members of the “Porvoo Agreement,” namely the Church of England and the Church of Finland, for not letting them be more involved in the discussion. Bilateral critique like this follows from the premise of mutual accountability! And unless our agreements take such a shape, they run the risk of being little more than small-talk.
From my point of view there is much at stake in the Anglican Communion’s attempts to reshape itself, since it stands at the crossroad of many traditions. If it manages to find a new form of its own communion, it might be able to act as mediator between different strands in the Church; if not, it will still bear consequences for the whole Church, albeit negative ones. The question, as I understand it, pertains not only to the decisions that will be made but also to how seriously the different churches will take the debate—and each other—throughout this time of decision-making; or, to return to my initial reflection: it is a question not only of articulating an appropriate compromise but of the readiness to find oneself—and Christ—through the encounter with the other.
One Church?
Losing Identity
A couple of years ago I was one of the initiators of a symposium on the identity of the Church of Sweden. I especially remember one of the professors standing up and saying: in a post-modern context, we are not so fond anymore of speaking about identity….
Following this interesting assertion, it seems that it could be developed in relation to the question of the future shape of the Anglican Communion. Because a focus on the preservation of one’s own identity may be an equally distinguishing trait for both the allegedly conservative and liberal, as both fear that the views of the other may be superimposed upon them (in this sense, both are literally “conservatives”!).
Of course, concern about identity can be appropriate and even necessary at times. Sometimes one’s identity has to be defended vehemently against intruders. The problem, however, arises when such defenses are taken as the rule rather than the exception. They betray a typically modern understanding of freedom as something that has to be defended, negotiated and compromised, because its preconception is the market or politics. It is my identity against yours, your freedom against mine in a game where all are competitors, intruding upon the freedom of the other, where common space only can be a place for a hermeneutics of suspicion (so that my rights are not overlooked).
As common as this kind of understanding of identity and freedom may be, it is not sufficient because it does not account for the more fundamental experience of freedom taking place precisely in the interaction with someone, that one’s identity only finds its fullest expression and potential in relating to something else. On a personal level, our identities are never set; they evolve through the circumstances and the people that we meet. Theologically speaking, my identity can never be just mine, since my existence is ultimately dependent on God and can therefore find its goal only in (relation to) Christ. In this sense my identity is a calling to leave myself, entrusting myself to God in daily repentance—ultimately, a preparation for death, when I will lose everything, dependent on the same grace that gave me life. In this way, we are called to follow the path of kenosis through which Christ opened the mystery of God’s trinitarian self-giving love to us (Phil. 2:5-11).
The Shape of the Church
As already hinted, it seems to me that these questions about identity also pertain to the different churches that we live in. And what I would emphasize is how the given shape of any church can support or make the encounter with the “other” hard. We are, I think, used to the long-standing critique of the hierarchical and legalized structure of the Roman Catholic Church that the early Protestant churches, such as my own, emphasized (perhaps rightly) at the time of the Reformation—searching for a new structure on the basis of the old which would focus more closely on the centre and less on that which is adiaphora (or non-essential). But sometimes we forget that all church structures have particular consequences, even for those who claim no structure.
The Swedish Church, for example, soon lost itself inside another structure, that of the state, in a self-centeredness out of which it has only slowly been able to emerge during the 20th century. And in a way it still struggles with the same problem; for despite the fact of not being the church of the state anymore, its structure is so closely built on that of the state that the political parties remain actively involved in church policy! Likewise, despite the fact that the Swedish church has engaged in ecumenical dialogue for almost a hundred years, initiating the process that would become the World Council of Churches, the question still lingers: how serious is this commitment—as long as other churches do not have a voice (or even a vote!) in the decisions made in the Council of the church? It was interesting to see how the Swedish church, after the controversial decision to bless same-sex partnerships (not formal marriages), was criticised by fellow-members of the “Porvoo Agreement,” namely the Church of England and the Church of Finland, for not letting them be more involved in the discussion. Bilateral critique like this follows from the premise of mutual accountability! And unless our agreements take such a shape, they run the risk of being little more than small-talk.
From my point of view there is much at stake in the Anglican Communion’s attempts to reshape itself, since it stands at the crossroad of many traditions. If it manages to find a new form of its own communion, it might be able to act as mediator between different strands in the Church; if not, it will still bear consequences for the whole Church, albeit negative ones. The question, as I understand it, pertains not only to the decisions that will be made but also to how seriously the different churches will take the debate—and each other—throughout this time of decision-making; or, to return to my initial reflection: it is a question not only of articulating an appropriate compromise but of the readiness to find oneself—and Christ—through the encounter with the other.
That is my prayer for the Anglican Communion: that it may find a shape in which the different churches are bound to each other and a form of mutual decision-making.
A critical potential
Some final words about the vision of the One Church: is it really a realistic goal? Often I think it is not, despite the fact that as a member of a community of prayer I have bound myself to beg for it daily. Sometimes I am even catch myself suspecting, in (post-) modern fashion, that the realized vision would necessarily entail some kind of oppression. So why do I keep praying? One way of looking at it that still makes sense to me is to see the critical potential of the prayer. Repeating the prayer of Jesus Christ himself, “that all may be one” (John 17:20), we are continually lead out of our own contexts and problems to the one God, and the manifold witnesses of all the others: never satisfied with just ourselves; always struggling to understand our brothers and sisters across the world (and throughout time), as we likewise try to make ourselves understood; letting their views achieve a critical correlation with our own.
Finding forms for such an encounter is certainly not adiaphora but essential for our living identity as a Church. Its beginning and its proper place is the Liturgy, where we offer ourselves to the One God, praying that his Spirit will renew us again into the one body of his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Bishop of Albany on the House of Bishops Meeting
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
As most of you are well aware, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church met September 19th -25th in New Orleans. Immediately following was a meeting of The Common Cause Partnership, held in Pittsburgh, September 25th - 28th. I attended both meetings, the second of which as an observer. Rather than come out with some statement immediately upon my return, I felt it necessary to take a few days to pray and reflect on all that occurred, as well as deal with all the diocesan business that was awaiting me upon my return. I would now like to share some of my thoughts and observations. I greatly appreciate your patience.
Regarding the House of Bishops’ Meeting, there were some hopeful things that occurred, as well as some frustrating and disappointing things, all of which I will speak more about in the following response. The main task confronting the bishops going into the meeting was how to respond to the February 2007 Dar es Salaam Communiqué from the Primates of the Anglican Communion.
Essentially we were asked to make a clear response to four areas of concern:
1) Will the House of Bishops make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention?
2) Will the House of Bishops confirm that the passing of Resolution BO33 of the 75th
General Convention means that a candidate for Episcopal orders living in a same sex union shall not receive the necessary consent; unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion?
3) Will the House of Bishops allow participation in the pastoral scheme proposed in the Dar es Salaam Communiqué which would provide an alternative Primatial Vicar for those dioceses requesting it?
4) Will the House of Bishops respond favorably to the urging from the Primates for representatives of The Episcopal Church and of those congregations in property disputes to suspend all legal actions against one another?
The statement made by the House of Bishops in response to the four areas of concern just mentioned can be found on the Diocesan Website: http://www.albanyepiscopaldiocese.org/news/other/071002.html.
As you might expect, there has been a great deal of debate and speculation these past several days regarding the bishops’ response and how it will be received by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates of the Anglican Communion. While some believe that the Bishops’ Statement adequately addresses the Primates’ concerns and will thereby be favorably received, helping to mend the “tear in the fabric” of our common life in Christ, others argue that it is more of the same, falling far short of the clear unequivocal response requested by the Primates. Unfortunately, the recently released Joint Standing Committee (JSC) Report on the House of Bishops’ response only adds to the confusion.
On the one hand the JSC report states, “We believe that the Episcopal Church has clarified all outstanding questions relating to their response to the questions directed explicitly to them, and on which clarifications were sought by the 30th of September and given the necessary assurance sought of them.” However, as stated by Archbishop Mouneer Aris, Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East, “It is very unfortunate that not all the members of the JSC were present when a response to the House of Bishops of TEC was drafted. The lack of discussion and interaction will not produce a report that expresses the view of the whole committee.” He went on to say, “the House of Bishops has not responded positively to either the Windsor Report or the Dar es Salam Primates’ recommendations."
Ultimately, Archbishop Rowan Williams and the other Primates will decide for themselves as to the adequacy of the Bishops’ Statement. A copy of the JSC report has been sent to all the Anglican Communion Primates and members of the Anglican Consultive Council with the request that they respond back to the Archbishop of Canterbury by the end of October.
Given the seriousness of the situation we find ourselves in, with the very future of the Anglican Communion, The Episcopal Church and ultimately the Diocese of Albany at stake, I urge each of us to keep the Archbishop of Canterbury along with the other Primates and members of the ACC in our prayers as they attempt to discern God’s will in how best to move forward. This truly is a critical time in the life of the Church. As we have all been reminded, the very fabric of the Anglican Communion has been torn. The decisions that will be made in the coming weeks and months could very well determine whether the fabric can be mended or whether it will be completely ripped in half, leading to the breakup of the Anglican Communion. I believe such a development would be tragic, delivering a major blow to all of Christendom.
In John’s Gospel, we read Jesus’ prayer for unity, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one…I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world…I ask you to protect them from the evil one…Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth…I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:11, 14, 17, 20-21, 23) May our Lord ’s prayer for unity be our prayer. We are not just talking about the future relationship of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. The spread of the Gospel and the salvation of countless souls are at stake. The current environment within the Episcopal Church, with all the attacks and infighting is not very conducive to bringing people into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
It is time to call a truce in the current battle, to give us time to rethink the road I am afraid the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion may very well go down if we are not careful. There is enough guilt, blame, pain and hurt to cover all sides. It is easy to point fingers at one another, blaming the other for the mess that we are in, but the reality is, we are all guilty. We have all contributed to the broken state of affairs in the Church – conservative, liberal, orthodox, revisionist -- whatever classification or label we might have. We are all in need of asking for forgiveness and offering forgiveness. Part of the House of Bishops inability to work more closely with one another and with the wider Anglican Communion is a result of past hurts and offenses that have never healed, been forgiven, or honestly dealt with. With that said, however, there are hopeful signs with the current governance of the House of Bishops that some healing can start taking place.
Genuine theological differences are another major contributing factor to the House’s inability to offer a more clear response to the Primates’ request. While the final statement made by the House of Bishops was much better than it started out, it fell far short of what I and several other Windsor Bishops had hoped for. It does however show the division within the House over the issues we are struggling with. Much of the apparent ambiguity in the response was actually an indication that the House is not all of one mind, but in fact is divided, despite various statements to suggest otherwise.
In the March 2007 Statement from the House of Bishops, the following remark was made: “In truth, the number of those who seek to divide our Church is small…The fact that we have among ourselves, and indeed encourage, a diversity of opinion on issues of sexuality should in no way be misunderstood to mean that we are divided, except among a very few, in our love for The Episcopal Church…”
During the House of Bishops Meeting, I along with other conservative bishops challenged the above statement. At the very least I believe this statement is inaccurate and fails to acknowledge the pain, frustration, embarrassment and anger that thousands of theologically conservative and orthodox Episcopalians are experiencing throughout the Episcopal Church. I’m not sure what is more frustrating, the fact that the statement was ever made, or that some actually believe it in light of the growing exodus of some of our largest parishes to include Christ Church, Plano (the largest Episcopal Church in the nation); Falls Church, VA; Truro Church, VA; the Pro Cathedral of St. Clement, El Paso; as well as numerous other smaller churches around the country, not to mention the tens of thousands of individual Episcopalians who have left the Episcopal Church in the last few years to go elsewhere because they cannot support the current direction of the National Church and because they are tired of fighting. In discussing the March statement, I pointed out that not only did I believe it was inaccurate for the reasons just mentioned, but to suggest that the number of people upset about the current state of affairs in the Church is “small” or “a very few” is insulting, insinuating that their views are insignificant. I stated, “I don’t consider myself or others who share similar theological views to be insignificant.” Fortunately, attempts to put similar statements in the September HOB response were not approved.
In the various attempts these past several years, as well intentioned as some of them may have been, to correct past injustices and make The Episcopal Church more inclusive, reaching out to the marginalized in society (particularly within the homosexual community), the Church has unfortunately become more exclusive, creating a new class of victims – the traditional orthodox believers. Clergy and laity alike, who acknowledge the authority of Holy Scripture, recognizing it as the revealed Word of God, and who believe the faith proclaimed in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, as well as the traditional moral teachings of the Church, now find themselves under attack not only from the world as Jesus warned they would, but even more disturbingly, from within the Church itself. I believe the growing exodus of thousands and thousands of Episcopalians out of the Episcopal Church to CANA, AMiA, and the various other Anglican bodies that are springing up bear witness to the truth of this statement. The average Sunday attendance in The Episcopal Church across the United States is now under 800,000.
If we are to stop the current downward spiral of The Episcopal Church and the unraveling of the Anglican Communion, it is essential that the leadership of the Episcopal Church (Lay and Ordained) as well as the leadership of the wider Anglican Communion acknowledge the reality of the crisis we are in and then commit ourselves to work together to identify and honestly address the issues that have brought us to this point. While some are working toward this goal, much more still needs to be done. One thing is certain, if there is to be a turn around in the Church, there must be a viable place for the conservative orthodox voice. I was pleased at the September meeting that more conservative orthodox bishops began speaking up. I was also encouraged by the greater sense of cooperation between bishops of highly differing views. The warm reception that I, as a conservative bishop, have personally received by the vast majority of the bishops has been greatly appreciated and ads to my sense of hope for the future.
Some of the major problems we find ourselves confronted with include how to work through the very real theological differences in understanding of Holy Scripture and its authority in our lives; how to live out one’s human sexuality in a manner that is pleasing to God; how to best minister to those who find themselves to be homosexual; and what it means to live in communion with one another, exercising appropriate discipline when necessary while at the same time not falling into Satan’s trap of dividing ourselves into opposing camps at war with one another. As Jesus himself said, “Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house.” (Luke 11:17) The more we divide the weaker and less effective we become in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
While not compromising Himself by conforming to or adopting the ways of the world, Jesus didn’t isolate himself from people living sinful lives, as we currently seem to be doing by saying who we will and won’t associate with. But rather, he ate and drank and socialized with them. His presence amongst them brought transformation and healing into their brokenness. It is time that we recognize that we are all broken and that our enemy is not the person who thinks differently than we do, but Satan and the powers of evil who are intent on confusing, dividing and destroying us. If we are to overcome the chaos, confusion and division that threaten our Church, we must unite with one another in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Unity for unity sake is of little value. True meaningful unity within the Church can only occur in and through Christ. As you have heard me say over and over again, we must keep our focus on Christ as we go through the midst of the current storm we find ourselves in. Jesus is “the Way, and the Truth and the Life.” (John 14:6) If we come humbly before the Lord, seeking His guidance, He will lead us, giving us the grace we need to work with those of a different mind, while we work toward a common understanding. I am not suggesting that it will be easy, but just the opposite. It will take tremendous effort, great humility, forgiveness, patience, understanding, and grace, depending not upon ourselves, but rather upon our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us. Apart from Christ we will fail, but in and through Christ ALL things are possible. It is for this reason that I have hope and am unwilling to write this person or that person or this group or that group off. I am constantly reminded of Paul’s Damascus Road experience and how an encounter with the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, turned one of the greatest enemies of the Church into one of the greatest saints of the Church.
A member of our Diocese recently emailed me and asked, “Can you give me any good reason (s) why I should remain a member of TEC (The Episcopal Church)?” In response to my friend who asked this question and to all the others who are thinking it, I offer the following reasons:
- The Diocese of Albany including each of its parishes is The Episcopal Church within the 19 counties and 20,000 square miles that make up its borders.
- The Bishop and leadership of this Diocese are Christ centered, and are committed to helping the Diocese live out The Great Commandment and The Great Commission, sharing the love and Good News of Jesus Christ, proclaiming Him as Lord and Savior, The Way, the Truth and the Life.
- The Lord is doing a mighty work in the Diocese of Albany, pouring out his Holy Spirit on the various ministries of the Diocese, particularly in the ministry of healing.
- At its best, The Episcopal Church as a member of the Anglican Communion has much to offer the larger Church, through its rich history, liturgy and tradition as well as its unique position uniting the best of Catholicism and Protestantism into one faith.
- The Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion, although far from perfect, are worth fighting for. There is no perfect Church this side of Heaven. And yet even in our brokenness, God’s strength can shine forth.
- You are a unique child of God, created in His image and likeness. We love and need you. I say this to all the members of this Diocese, regardless of where you find yourselves on the theological spectrum.
While being very conscious of the length of this letter and your time in reading it, there are a couple more things that I need to comment on. Regarding that which was asked by the Primates of the Anglican Communion, while I can’t speak for the entire House of Bishops, I will speak for myself as the Bishop of Albany and a member of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church.
1) I will not authorize or permit any Rite of Blessing (public or private) for same-sex unions in this Diocese for the following reasons:
- There is no Biblical president or support in either the Old or New Testament for such blessings. To do so would be encouraging individuals to live in a lifestyle that I believe is contrary to God’s Word as revealed in the teachings of Holy Scripture and 2000 years of Church tradition, and is therefore not in a person’s best interest to do so.
- I recognize that many in our Church see this as a “justice issue.” I strongly believe that the Church has a responsibility to fight injustice protecting the dignity of all human beings, and to reach out and minister to all people including those who find themselves to be homosexual. The Church needs to reassure all people of God’s love for them and His gift of salvation made possible for all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, accepting Him as Lord and Savior. While God loves ALL His children, He does not necessarily approve of or bless all of our behavior. For this reason and the reasons listed above, I believe the Church would in fact be doing a great injustice to our homosexual brothers and sisters in Christ, by blessing same sex unions, even when those unions are within the confines of a loving and committed relationship.
- As a member of the Anglican Communion, I believe The Episcopal Church has a responsibility to the other members of the Communion who have clearly stated that such blessings are not appropriate and in fact to authorize them would cause great pain, suffering and damage throughout the wider Communion.
2) While the interpretation of Resolution BO33 of the 75th General Convention seems to be somewhat debatable, depending on who you talk to, as the Bishop of Albany, I will not consent to any candidate for Episcopal orders living in a same sex union or anyone involved in sexual relations outside of marriage between a man and woman, unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion. I make this
commitment for the same reasons listed above. I would remind us that in 1991,
the General Convention passed Resolution B020, addressing “human sexuality issues.” It concluded by saying, “these potentially divisive issues… should not be resolved by the Episcopal Church on its own.” Unfortunately, we failed to heed our own warning which proved to be very prophetic.
3) In regard to lawsuits, I believe every effort should be made by the Church to avoid going to court over property issues. Once you go to court, everyone loses, the Diocese, the Parish, the local community and the Church at large. There has to be a more Christian manor of resolving legal disputes than the one currently being employed by the National Church in dioceses across the country. I applaud those bishops who have tried to deal with these issues in a pastoral way.
Finally in reference to the meeting of the Common Cause Partnership in Pittsburgh, as mentioned at the beginning of this letter, I did attend the meeting as an observer. I believe I have a responsibility as your bishop to be as informed as I can be regarding the current situation facing our Church. As I stated at the Diocesan Convention in June, it is my hope and prayer that we never have to decide between the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion. We are currently a member of both. God willing, we will stay that way. You will recall at the Diocesan Convention, I stated if either The Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion took any action that would require us to choose between one or the other, I would call for a Special Convention, at which time we would come together as a Diocese to decide how best to respond to whatever confronts us. To date, there is no need for such an action. Again, I pray there never will be.
With that said, as much as I love The Episcopal Church (even with all its current frustrations) and as much as I love the Anglican Communion, I love the Lord Jesus Christ most of all. As your bishop, I will do everything within my power, through the grace of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to remain Christ centered, seeking His will in all that we do, as we move forward living out The Great Commandment and The Great Commission. May we never loose sight of who we are as children of God and the mission entrusted to us by our Lord Himself, to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything He has commanded. In so doing, our Lord promised he would never leave us, but would be with us to the end of the age.” God’s peace.
Faithfully Yours in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Bill Love
Bishop of Albany
As most of you are well aware, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church met September 19th -25th in New Orleans. Immediately following was a meeting of The Common Cause Partnership, held in Pittsburgh, September 25th - 28th. I attended both meetings, the second of which as an observer. Rather than come out with some statement immediately upon my return, I felt it necessary to take a few days to pray and reflect on all that occurred, as well as deal with all the diocesan business that was awaiting me upon my return. I would now like to share some of my thoughts and observations. I greatly appreciate your patience.
Regarding the House of Bishops’ Meeting, there were some hopeful things that occurred, as well as some frustrating and disappointing things, all of which I will speak more about in the following response. The main task confronting the bishops going into the meeting was how to respond to the February 2007 Dar es Salaam Communiqué from the Primates of the Anglican Communion.
Essentially we were asked to make a clear response to four areas of concern:
1) Will the House of Bishops make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention?
2) Will the House of Bishops confirm that the passing of Resolution BO33 of the 75th
General Convention means that a candidate for Episcopal orders living in a same sex union shall not receive the necessary consent; unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion?
3) Will the House of Bishops allow participation in the pastoral scheme proposed in the Dar es Salaam Communiqué which would provide an alternative Primatial Vicar for those dioceses requesting it?
4) Will the House of Bishops respond favorably to the urging from the Primates for representatives of The Episcopal Church and of those congregations in property disputes to suspend all legal actions against one another?
The statement made by the House of Bishops in response to the four areas of concern just mentioned can be found on the Diocesan Website: http://www.albanyepiscopaldiocese.org/news/other/071002.html.
As you might expect, there has been a great deal of debate and speculation these past several days regarding the bishops’ response and how it will be received by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates of the Anglican Communion. While some believe that the Bishops’ Statement adequately addresses the Primates’ concerns and will thereby be favorably received, helping to mend the “tear in the fabric” of our common life in Christ, others argue that it is more of the same, falling far short of the clear unequivocal response requested by the Primates. Unfortunately, the recently released Joint Standing Committee (JSC) Report on the House of Bishops’ response only adds to the confusion.
On the one hand the JSC report states, “We believe that the Episcopal Church has clarified all outstanding questions relating to their response to the questions directed explicitly to them, and on which clarifications were sought by the 30th of September and given the necessary assurance sought of them.” However, as stated by Archbishop Mouneer Aris, Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East, “It is very unfortunate that not all the members of the JSC were present when a response to the House of Bishops of TEC was drafted. The lack of discussion and interaction will not produce a report that expresses the view of the whole committee.” He went on to say, “the House of Bishops has not responded positively to either the Windsor Report or the Dar es Salam Primates’ recommendations."
Ultimately, Archbishop Rowan Williams and the other Primates will decide for themselves as to the adequacy of the Bishops’ Statement. A copy of the JSC report has been sent to all the Anglican Communion Primates and members of the Anglican Consultive Council with the request that they respond back to the Archbishop of Canterbury by the end of October.
Given the seriousness of the situation we find ourselves in, with the very future of the Anglican Communion, The Episcopal Church and ultimately the Diocese of Albany at stake, I urge each of us to keep the Archbishop of Canterbury along with the other Primates and members of the ACC in our prayers as they attempt to discern God’s will in how best to move forward. This truly is a critical time in the life of the Church. As we have all been reminded, the very fabric of the Anglican Communion has been torn. The decisions that will be made in the coming weeks and months could very well determine whether the fabric can be mended or whether it will be completely ripped in half, leading to the breakup of the Anglican Communion. I believe such a development would be tragic, delivering a major blow to all of Christendom.
In John’s Gospel, we read Jesus’ prayer for unity, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one…I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world…I ask you to protect them from the evil one…Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth…I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:11, 14, 17, 20-21, 23) May our Lord ’s prayer for unity be our prayer. We are not just talking about the future relationship of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. The spread of the Gospel and the salvation of countless souls are at stake. The current environment within the Episcopal Church, with all the attacks and infighting is not very conducive to bringing people into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
It is time to call a truce in the current battle, to give us time to rethink the road I am afraid the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion may very well go down if we are not careful. There is enough guilt, blame, pain and hurt to cover all sides. It is easy to point fingers at one another, blaming the other for the mess that we are in, but the reality is, we are all guilty. We have all contributed to the broken state of affairs in the Church – conservative, liberal, orthodox, revisionist -- whatever classification or label we might have. We are all in need of asking for forgiveness and offering forgiveness. Part of the House of Bishops inability to work more closely with one another and with the wider Anglican Communion is a result of past hurts and offenses that have never healed, been forgiven, or honestly dealt with. With that said, however, there are hopeful signs with the current governance of the House of Bishops that some healing can start taking place.
Genuine theological differences are another major contributing factor to the House’s inability to offer a more clear response to the Primates’ request. While the final statement made by the House of Bishops was much better than it started out, it fell far short of what I and several other Windsor Bishops had hoped for. It does however show the division within the House over the issues we are struggling with. Much of the apparent ambiguity in the response was actually an indication that the House is not all of one mind, but in fact is divided, despite various statements to suggest otherwise.
In the March 2007 Statement from the House of Bishops, the following remark was made: “In truth, the number of those who seek to divide our Church is small…The fact that we have among ourselves, and indeed encourage, a diversity of opinion on issues of sexuality should in no way be misunderstood to mean that we are divided, except among a very few, in our love for The Episcopal Church…”
During the House of Bishops Meeting, I along with other conservative bishops challenged the above statement. At the very least I believe this statement is inaccurate and fails to acknowledge the pain, frustration, embarrassment and anger that thousands of theologically conservative and orthodox Episcopalians are experiencing throughout the Episcopal Church. I’m not sure what is more frustrating, the fact that the statement was ever made, or that some actually believe it in light of the growing exodus of some of our largest parishes to include Christ Church, Plano (the largest Episcopal Church in the nation); Falls Church, VA; Truro Church, VA; the Pro Cathedral of St. Clement, El Paso; as well as numerous other smaller churches around the country, not to mention the tens of thousands of individual Episcopalians who have left the Episcopal Church in the last few years to go elsewhere because they cannot support the current direction of the National Church and because they are tired of fighting. In discussing the March statement, I pointed out that not only did I believe it was inaccurate for the reasons just mentioned, but to suggest that the number of people upset about the current state of affairs in the Church is “small” or “a very few” is insulting, insinuating that their views are insignificant. I stated, “I don’t consider myself or others who share similar theological views to be insignificant.” Fortunately, attempts to put similar statements in the September HOB response were not approved.
In the various attempts these past several years, as well intentioned as some of them may have been, to correct past injustices and make The Episcopal Church more inclusive, reaching out to the marginalized in society (particularly within the homosexual community), the Church has unfortunately become more exclusive, creating a new class of victims – the traditional orthodox believers. Clergy and laity alike, who acknowledge the authority of Holy Scripture, recognizing it as the revealed Word of God, and who believe the faith proclaimed in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, as well as the traditional moral teachings of the Church, now find themselves under attack not only from the world as Jesus warned they would, but even more disturbingly, from within the Church itself. I believe the growing exodus of thousands and thousands of Episcopalians out of the Episcopal Church to CANA, AMiA, and the various other Anglican bodies that are springing up bear witness to the truth of this statement. The average Sunday attendance in The Episcopal Church across the United States is now under 800,000.
If we are to stop the current downward spiral of The Episcopal Church and the unraveling of the Anglican Communion, it is essential that the leadership of the Episcopal Church (Lay and Ordained) as well as the leadership of the wider Anglican Communion acknowledge the reality of the crisis we are in and then commit ourselves to work together to identify and honestly address the issues that have brought us to this point. While some are working toward this goal, much more still needs to be done. One thing is certain, if there is to be a turn around in the Church, there must be a viable place for the conservative orthodox voice. I was pleased at the September meeting that more conservative orthodox bishops began speaking up. I was also encouraged by the greater sense of cooperation between bishops of highly differing views. The warm reception that I, as a conservative bishop, have personally received by the vast majority of the bishops has been greatly appreciated and ads to my sense of hope for the future.
Some of the major problems we find ourselves confronted with include how to work through the very real theological differences in understanding of Holy Scripture and its authority in our lives; how to live out one’s human sexuality in a manner that is pleasing to God; how to best minister to those who find themselves to be homosexual; and what it means to live in communion with one another, exercising appropriate discipline when necessary while at the same time not falling into Satan’s trap of dividing ourselves into opposing camps at war with one another. As Jesus himself said, “Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house.” (Luke 11:17) The more we divide the weaker and less effective we become in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
While not compromising Himself by conforming to or adopting the ways of the world, Jesus didn’t isolate himself from people living sinful lives, as we currently seem to be doing by saying who we will and won’t associate with. But rather, he ate and drank and socialized with them. His presence amongst them brought transformation and healing into their brokenness. It is time that we recognize that we are all broken and that our enemy is not the person who thinks differently than we do, but Satan and the powers of evil who are intent on confusing, dividing and destroying us. If we are to overcome the chaos, confusion and division that threaten our Church, we must unite with one another in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Unity for unity sake is of little value. True meaningful unity within the Church can only occur in and through Christ. As you have heard me say over and over again, we must keep our focus on Christ as we go through the midst of the current storm we find ourselves in. Jesus is “the Way, and the Truth and the Life.” (John 14:6) If we come humbly before the Lord, seeking His guidance, He will lead us, giving us the grace we need to work with those of a different mind, while we work toward a common understanding. I am not suggesting that it will be easy, but just the opposite. It will take tremendous effort, great humility, forgiveness, patience, understanding, and grace, depending not upon ourselves, but rather upon our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us. Apart from Christ we will fail, but in and through Christ ALL things are possible. It is for this reason that I have hope and am unwilling to write this person or that person or this group or that group off. I am constantly reminded of Paul’s Damascus Road experience and how an encounter with the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, turned one of the greatest enemies of the Church into one of the greatest saints of the Church.
A member of our Diocese recently emailed me and asked, “Can you give me any good reason (s) why I should remain a member of TEC (The Episcopal Church)?” In response to my friend who asked this question and to all the others who are thinking it, I offer the following reasons:
- The Diocese of Albany including each of its parishes is The Episcopal Church within the 19 counties and 20,000 square miles that make up its borders.
- The Bishop and leadership of this Diocese are Christ centered, and are committed to helping the Diocese live out The Great Commandment and The Great Commission, sharing the love and Good News of Jesus Christ, proclaiming Him as Lord and Savior, The Way, the Truth and the Life.
- The Lord is doing a mighty work in the Diocese of Albany, pouring out his Holy Spirit on the various ministries of the Diocese, particularly in the ministry of healing.
- At its best, The Episcopal Church as a member of the Anglican Communion has much to offer the larger Church, through its rich history, liturgy and tradition as well as its unique position uniting the best of Catholicism and Protestantism into one faith.
- The Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion, although far from perfect, are worth fighting for. There is no perfect Church this side of Heaven. And yet even in our brokenness, God’s strength can shine forth.
- You are a unique child of God, created in His image and likeness. We love and need you. I say this to all the members of this Diocese, regardless of where you find yourselves on the theological spectrum.
While being very conscious of the length of this letter and your time in reading it, there are a couple more things that I need to comment on. Regarding that which was asked by the Primates of the Anglican Communion, while I can’t speak for the entire House of Bishops, I will speak for myself as the Bishop of Albany and a member of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church.
1) I will not authorize or permit any Rite of Blessing (public or private) for same-sex unions in this Diocese for the following reasons:
- There is no Biblical president or support in either the Old or New Testament for such blessings. To do so would be encouraging individuals to live in a lifestyle that I believe is contrary to God’s Word as revealed in the teachings of Holy Scripture and 2000 years of Church tradition, and is therefore not in a person’s best interest to do so.
- I recognize that many in our Church see this as a “justice issue.” I strongly believe that the Church has a responsibility to fight injustice protecting the dignity of all human beings, and to reach out and minister to all people including those who find themselves to be homosexual. The Church needs to reassure all people of God’s love for them and His gift of salvation made possible for all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, accepting Him as Lord and Savior. While God loves ALL His children, He does not necessarily approve of or bless all of our behavior. For this reason and the reasons listed above, I believe the Church would in fact be doing a great injustice to our homosexual brothers and sisters in Christ, by blessing same sex unions, even when those unions are within the confines of a loving and committed relationship.
- As a member of the Anglican Communion, I believe The Episcopal Church has a responsibility to the other members of the Communion who have clearly stated that such blessings are not appropriate and in fact to authorize them would cause great pain, suffering and damage throughout the wider Communion.
2) While the interpretation of Resolution BO33 of the 75th General Convention seems to be somewhat debatable, depending on who you talk to, as the Bishop of Albany, I will not consent to any candidate for Episcopal orders living in a same sex union or anyone involved in sexual relations outside of marriage between a man and woman, unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion. I make this
commitment for the same reasons listed above. I would remind us that in 1991,
the General Convention passed Resolution B020, addressing “human sexuality issues.” It concluded by saying, “these potentially divisive issues… should not be resolved by the Episcopal Church on its own.” Unfortunately, we failed to heed our own warning which proved to be very prophetic.
3) In regard to lawsuits, I believe every effort should be made by the Church to avoid going to court over property issues. Once you go to court, everyone loses, the Diocese, the Parish, the local community and the Church at large. There has to be a more Christian manor of resolving legal disputes than the one currently being employed by the National Church in dioceses across the country. I applaud those bishops who have tried to deal with these issues in a pastoral way.
Finally in reference to the meeting of the Common Cause Partnership in Pittsburgh, as mentioned at the beginning of this letter, I did attend the meeting as an observer. I believe I have a responsibility as your bishop to be as informed as I can be regarding the current situation facing our Church. As I stated at the Diocesan Convention in June, it is my hope and prayer that we never have to decide between the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion. We are currently a member of both. God willing, we will stay that way. You will recall at the Diocesan Convention, I stated if either The Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion took any action that would require us to choose between one or the other, I would call for a Special Convention, at which time we would come together as a Diocese to decide how best to respond to whatever confronts us. To date, there is no need for such an action. Again, I pray there never will be.
With that said, as much as I love The Episcopal Church (even with all its current frustrations) and as much as I love the Anglican Communion, I love the Lord Jesus Christ most of all. As your bishop, I will do everything within my power, through the grace of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to remain Christ centered, seeking His will in all that we do, as we move forward living out The Great Commandment and The Great Commission. May we never loose sight of who we are as children of God and the mission entrusted to us by our Lord Himself, to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything He has commanded. In so doing, our Lord promised he would never leave us, but would be with us to the end of the age.” God’s peace.
Faithfully Yours in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Bill Love
Bishop of Albany
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